Conclusion

Abstract

This quotation from The Tragic Muse, examined in Part 1, is a particularly fitting one to revisit at the conclusion of this study. One suspects that Nick Dormer’s motivation in sketching the Wildean Gabriel Nash was shared not only by Henry James, but also by many of the other authors examined here. While, like Dormer’s portrait, the works discussed above are ultimately unable to reduce the enigmatic Wilde to a simple, ‘solid’ fact, en masse they do successfully depict the social reality of a major Victorian writer and one of the most intriguing personalities of the late nineteenth century. Just as Dormer’s painting of Nash slowly fades, so many of these fictions have faded into obscurity with the passing of time. However, this study demonstrates that while these ‘photographs of the ghost’ may have faded they still have much to teach us about their fascinating subject and his milieu.

‘Let me at any rate have some sort of sketch of you, as a kind of feather from the angel’s wing, or a photograph of the ghost, to prove to me in the future that you were once a solid, sociable fact, that I didn’t utterly fabricate you.’

Nick Dormer to Gabriel Nash, in Henry James, The Tragic Muse