Vyvyan Holland
Vyvyan Beresford Holland,
Biography
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/Vyvyan_Wilde_1891.jpg/170px-Vyvyan_Wilde_1891.jpg)
John Ruskin was Oscar Wilde's first choice as godfather to Vyvyan, but he declined because of his age.[2] Wilde turned to Mortimer Menpes, who accepted.[3] According to Vyvyan Holland's accounts in his autobiography, Son of Oscar Wilde (1954), Oscar was a devoted and loving father to his two sons and their childhood was a relatively happy one.[4]
After 1895, when Wilde was convicted of the charge of "gross indecency" and imprisoned, Constance changed her surname, and those of their sons, to Holland.[5] She forced Wilde to give up his parental rights.
She moved with the boys to
After Constance died in 1898, her relatives sought legal counsel to prevent Oscar Wilde from seeing his sons again. Wilde died in 1900.
Vyvyan studied law at
Holland resumed his study of law at the age of 22, and was called to the Bar of England and Wales by the Inner Temple in 1912. He also began to write poems and short stories.[8]
Holland married Violet Mary Craigie on 7 January 1914. She died on 15 October 1918 at Westminster Hospital, Middlesex, from injuries in a fire.[9]
At the start of the
Holland became an author and translator. At the beginning of the
In 1947 Holland and his wife left for Australia and New Zealand, where she had been invited to give lectures on fashionable dress in 19th-century Australia.[8] The couple lived in Melbourne from 1948 to 1952.
In 1954, after returning to England, Holland published an autobiography entitled Son of Oscar Wilde.[4]
Vyvyan Holland died in London in 1967, aged 80.
References
- ^ "No. 29015". The London Gazette. 22 December 1914. p. 10926.
- ^ Norman Page, ed., An Oscar Wilde Chronology, p. 33. Retrieved 29 June 2020
- ^ Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, p. 251
- ^ Time Magazine. 27 September 1954. Archived from the originalon 12 February 2009. Retrieved 8 August 2008.
- ^ "GREAT BRITAIN: A Life of Concealment". TIME.com. 27 September 1954. Archived from the original on 12 February 2009. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
- ^ Oscar Wilde: Children
- ^ "Books: Happy Man". Time. 15 July 1946. Archived from the original on 23 October 2012. Retrieved 27 May 2010.
- ^ a b "Let's talk about". mr-oscar-wilde.de. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
- ^ Findlay, Jean (10 March 2015). Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C. K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy, and Translator. Macmillan. p. 125.
- ^ Hadden, Briton; Luce, Henry Robinson (1946). Time. Time Incorporated. p. 105.
- ^ Obituary: Thelma Holland
Books
- The Mediaeval Courts of Love (1927) privately printed book
- On the Subject of Bores (1935) privately printed book
- Son of Oscar Wilde (1954), memoir, E P Dutton & Co, 1954.
- Oscar Wilde and his world (1960)
- Oscar Wilde – a pictorial biography (1960)
- Time Remembered After Pere Lachaise (1966) a continuation of his memoirs
External links
- Biography of Vyvyan Holland
- Wilde children Archived 10 November 2015 at the Wayback Machine
- Article with Bibliography