The Washington Post - Friday, April 12, 1895

Oscar Wilde’s Books and Plays.

What nonsense is this about Oscar Wilde’s books and plays—about withdrawing them from circulation and all the rest of it? People are not required to read his books or to patronize his plays, but why should they be forbidden to do either or both simply because the author has personally disgraced himself? What has Oscar Wilde’s privately infamy to do with the moral and literary merit of his published works?

We are glad to see that the superintendent of the Congressional Library has set his face against the silly rant that broke out, notably in St. Louis, as a consequence of Wilde’s exposure in the London court. Books stand upon their intrinsic merits. The world has little concern in what the author of a book may do as an individual. They look to what the book itself suggests or advocates or proclaims. Shelly was an atheist and a protestant against the institution of marriage. Byron was about as loose a gentleman as history records. Milton was an ingrate, a hypocrite, and a traitor. And so on. Nobody ever succeeded in suppressing their works because their private characters were said to be objectionable. Why endeavor to reverse the record in Oscar Wilde’s case? If his books are bad they should have been denounced on that account. If his plays are stupid or immoral why not condemn them as such? But, after reading his books without suspicion of harm and enjoying his plays as specimens of admirable wit and fancy, to suddenly cry out against them because the author has been sent to prison—this is nonsense unworthy of intelligent and civilized human beings. It is nonsense to be ashamed of.