Introduction

Abstract This Introduction sets the scene for the volume’s chapters by telling the story of Wilde’s critical history, from the early years in which Robert Ross consolidated and edited Wilde’s Complete Works to the present. It is structured chronologically in the following sections: (1) The Birth of Wilde Studies: 1900–1950; (2) Wilde Goes Pop: 1945–2000; (3) Wilde in the Twenty-First Century. It explains how early criticism tried to show Wilde’s serious side while marginalizing sexuality in readings of his work and then how Wilde’s critical reception was revolutionized by the rise of queer criticism from the late 1980s. Its final section sets out the main currents of current engagements with Wilde and his works, focusing on transnationalism adaptation and the problems Wilde poses for twenty-first-century critics.