Gabrielle Pantera interviews author Gyles Brandreth
“The fall of 2009 marks the 120th anniversary of the first meeting between Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle,” says Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile author Gyles Brandreth. “They were introduced by an American publisher, J M Stoddart, in 1889. That historic encounter resulted in Conan Doyle deciding to write a second Sherlock Holmes story. He’d only planned to do one. It led Wilde to write the Picture of Dorian Gray. And, it led me to create the Oscar Wilde mysteries.”
Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile has Wilde spending Christmas Eve 1890 with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. As a Christmas gift, Wilde gives Doyle a manuscript of events that took place years before in Wilde’s life. The manuscript is about a mystery that occurred during Wilde’s travels to the United States and Paris in the 1881. Wilde meets the famous acting La Grange family and members of their acting troop on their way to Paris. A member of the troop dies. Was it an accident or murder?
This is Brandreth’s third installment in the Oscar Wilde Mystery series. Brandreth had an interest in Oscar Wilde from an early age. At age 14, Brandreth met Oscar Wilde’s friend John Badley, then 97 years of age. Later, Badley met Oscar Wilde’s grandson. “Meeting Oscar Wilde’s grandson put me right when I was going wrong,” says Brandreth. “For example, I had Oscar drinking Dom Perignon champagne. It didn’t exist in Oscar’s day. Oscar drank Perrier-Jouet.”
“I need to get it right, so I’ve been to all the places he visits in the story: Reading Jail, his London home, his Paris hotel, where he stayed in New York,” says Brandreth. “I also made amazing and amusing discoveries. Oscar Wilde met Louisa May Alcott and P. T. Barnum and Jumbo the Elephant. I want the book to be both an exciting mystery and an accurate and revealing portrait of Wilde and his world and circle.”
“I’m marking the anniversary by unveiling a plaque at the Langham Hotel in London where they met,” says Brandreth. “This is also the 150th anniversary of the birth of Arthur Conan Doyle and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe. He really invented the mystery as we know it.”
Gyles Brandreth was born in a British Forces Hospital in Germany. His father was a lawyer in the army and served with the man who first published the transcripts of the 1895 trials of Oscar Wilde. Brandreth currently lives in London and Paris.
Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile: A Mystery has wonderful historical facts about Oscar Wilde and the people and events that occur around his life. The plot of the mystery is slow to start. The facts about Wilde are interesting and a great book unto itself. As a mystery it could start sooner and be fleshed out more. You’ll feel like you’re there listening to Wilde chatting with his friends. Brandreth, captures the essence of Wilde and his life perfectly, but the mystery seems secondary.
Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile: A Mystery (Oscar Wilde Mysteries)
by Gyles Brandreth. Trade Paperback, 400 pages, Publisher: Touchstone (September 1, 2009), Language: English, ISBN: 9781416534853.
