Greater Than the Mystery of Death: Rewriting Oscar Wilde for Young Audiences

Abstract

Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Oscar Wilde’s works frequently have been rewritten for the young-adult and children’s markets. In some cases, this has resulted in stories inspired by Wilde’s fiction and plays, but only tangentially related to them; in other cases, the relationship to the originals has been much closer. Often, these new versions have involved not merely simplification and over-emphasis on teaching moral lessons (as well as vocabulary lessons), but censorship, especially of the homoerotic elements in Wilde’s creations. Many of these adaptations too have been accompanied by mini-biographies of Wilde that either remain silent about his sexuality or that focus solely on his punishment for “gross indecency,” without explaining what that meant and without mentioning his romantic attachments to men. At the same time, there has been no full-length life of Wilde produced for young audiences—nothing that would allow young readers to connect emotionally or identify with him.