Rue des Beaux-Arts n ° 77- Octobre-Novembre- Décembre 2021
Joan Schenkar
Par David Charles Rose
• This aricle appeared in English in The Irish Times , 5th October 2000 . This is a lightly edited version . Truly Wilde : The Unsettling Story of Dolly Wilde , Oscar ' s Unusual Niece is published by Virago .
• Joan Schenkar died in Paris on the 5 th May 2021 .
When Oscar Wilde died at the age of 46 in November 1900 , his parents , his wife and his brother Willie were all dead and his sons were disguised under the name Holland . There was one Wilde still alive , however : Willie ' s daughter Dorothy Ierne , born five years before , in London . Oscar , newly imprisoned , contrived to send her £ 50 . Forty-six years later , with impeccable timing . Dolly died in her London flat .
During those 46 years , she burned with as gem-like a flame as any that Oscar warmed himself by , living chiefly in Paris , tracing the Left Bank streets that were once her uncle ' s , and having much the same impact on literary circles as Oscar . Unlike him , however , she put both her genius and her talent into her life : she left no work .
That genius and talent are now revealed for the first time by the American playwright Joan Schenkar in Truly Wilde . I met Schenkar in her hotel room in Soho : like her subject , she gravitates naturally towards bohemian quarters and sees herself as a wandering artist , regretting only that she cannot move her library with her .
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