"The gods had given me almost everything. I had genius, a distinguished name, high social position, brilliancy, intellectual daring: I made art a philosophy and philosophy an art: I altered the minds of men and the colours of things. I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me."
Writing De Profundis from Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde could not have foreseen that more than 100 years later his words would stand as a testament to one of the most brilliant writers of his time.
A century after his death, the President, Mrs McAleese, will visit the British Library's Centenary Exhibition, Oscar Wilde: A Life in Six Acts, in London later today and speak at a reception to mark his anniversary. The British Library exhibition is one of three major appreciations of Wilde's life and art marking his anniversary that are running in London; the others are at the Barbican and the Geffrye Museum.
Despite the fact that the British Library did not receive funding assistance for the exhibition, the curators and design team from Real Design have achieved something impressive. Here Oscar Wilde's life is presented in six detailed acts, filling a large space with a faintly theatrical air.
Oversized objects, such as a giltedged picture frame, exaggerate the theme of Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and a huge white fireplace represents everyday objects at the family home in Dublin as they would appear to a small child. There is also a reproduction of Wilde's room in Oxford University, with William Morris wallpaper, peacock feathers, fans on the walls and the blue china Wilde once said he found it difficult to live up to.
Superbly researched and wonderfully illustrated, the exhibition has benefited greatly from public and private donations, including many from Wilde's grandson, Merlin Holland. A number of anonymous donors also came up with delicious artefacts as the British Library put the final touches to the exhibition, including a scrapbook from Wilde's student days at Oxford, which first turned up with material relating to his London libel case.
As The Irish Times Walked through the exhibition with Sally Brown, curator of manuscripts at the British Library, she explained that when the library decided to establish its own tribute to Wilde a colleague realised, almost as an afterthought, that a friend owned a long-lost Toulouse-Lautrec painting of Wilde and offered to lend it to the library.
The library's luck was running high. Several other items, including some of Wilde's earliest surviving letters "came to us in a rather mysterious, serendipitous manner", said Ms Brown, "and I'm not allowed to say how we got them".
From Wilde's days at Oxford through to his successful lecture series in the US there are scrapbooks and questionnaires to read, including a student questionnaire which asked "What is your aim in life?": to which he answered: "Success: fame or even notoriety". There are scribbled notes and notes rewritten beside his lecture notes, and a reproduction of the train in which Wilde travelled at times around the US in 1882.
The library decided it wanted to be "neutral and not a Bosie basher" when dealing with Wilde's relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, the son of the Marquess of Queensberry. It is starkly presented as Wilde's "fatal passion". Ms Brown said that although there was no doubt that Douglas was spoilt and had a terrible temper, he was in love with Wilde.
From this point, Wilde's descent into obscurity and death is charted by a series of powerful objects. One of the most striking among them is the Marquess of Queensberry's calling card with the misspelt message - "For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite", which led Wilde to sue for libel and, after the charge was withdrawn, prompted his prosecution for homosexual offences.
The final act of the exhibition is devoted to Wilde's exile in France. After he had served two years in prison, he left England and adopted the new name, Sebastian Melmoth, the surname of which was taken from the novel by his great-uncle Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer. This part of the exhibition is smaller than the others, but no less powerful for concentrating on Wilde's final days in the little Hotel d'Alsace in Paris.
In a small glass cabinet, Wilde's last bill from the hotel is displayed next to the large, pleat-fronted white shirt he was wearing when he died.
A century after his death, the exhibition is utterly enjoyable, as Wilde himself might say. It runs until February 4th, 2001.