Fashioning the feminine: Wilde’s editorial vision and the New Woman

Blog series English and Drama

Author Suzy Corrigan, AHRC funded PhD candidate at Teesside University and former PhD Placement student at the British Library

Nestled within the Lady Eccles Oscar Wilde Collection at the British Library lies a remarkable cache of correspondence that highlights a lesser-known chapter of Oscar Wilde’s career:  his brief but transformative tenure as editor of The Woman’s World from 1887 to 1889. Originally titled The Lady’s World, Wilde accepted the editorial role on condition that the name be changed; signalling from the outset his intent to reshape the publication’s identity. Under Wilde’s stewardship, The Woman’s World evolved from a conventional and conservative periodical into a progressive platform that championed women’s intellectual and professional contributions. As literary scholar Loretta Clayton observes, Wilde’s editorial vision infused the magazine with the spirit of aestheticism while simultaneously engaging with social realities of the fin-de-siècle woman (Clayton, p.39). The result was a publication that not only reflected the cultural currents of the time but actively helped to shape them.

Among the treasures in the the collection are seventeen letters from Wilde to prominent women writers, inviting them to contribute poetry, historical essays and educational articles (Add MS 81699). These letters reveal Wilde’s deep respect for women’s voices and his belief in their cultural significance.

One such figure was Emily Faithfull (1835–1895), a pioneering advocate for women’s employment and founder of the Victoria Press. In 1887, Wilde wrote to Miss Faithfull requesting ‘a short article on ‘Printing and Book-binding as a Profession for Women’ giving some account of what a woman can earn at such an employment and how she can find an opening.’ He then thanked her for her promise to ‘draw the public attention to the magazine’, adding ‘but for a few women like yourself such a magazine would have been an impossilibilty’. Faithfull’s involvement, alongside other trailblazers like Edith Simcox (1844–1901), a  philosopher, writer, trade union activist and feminist underscores Wilde’s commitment to showcasing women not merely as readers, but as active contributors to literary and social discourse. In a letter to Simcox, Wilde outlined his editorial mission to reconstruct and edit The Lady’s World, ‘and the lines I propose to follow are literary, artistic and social in the sense of dealing with the practical work now being done by women in England’.

These 17 letters, from women authors, journalists and feminists such as Helena Sickert, Irish artist Rose Barton, author Phoebe Allen and travel writer Iza Duffus, are more than editorial requests, they are windows into Wilde’s progressive ideologies, aesthetic sensibilities and deep engagements with the cultural currents of his time. They offer insight into his belief that women should be seen as cultured, independent and equal figures in the intellectual space. Through his editorial decisions and personal correspondence, Wilde made a notable contribution to the New Woman movement by amplyfying progressive voices and challenging conventional gender norms.

The collection built by Mary Hyde (née Crapo), later Lady Mary Eccles, is a rich and diverse archive that captures the full spectrum of Wilde’s personal and professional life. From intimate letters to editorial exchanges, it charts the evolution of a figure who was as much a cultural architect as he was a literary icon. It preserves not only Wilde’s voice, but the voices of the pioneering women he championed: voices that helped shape the intellectual and aesthetic landscape of the late 19th century.

References

Eccles Bequest: Papers of Mary, Viscountess Eccles (1912–2003) relating to Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and others, 1817–2003, Add MS 81619–81884

Loretta Clayton, ‘The Aesthete and His Audience: Oscar Wilde in the 1880s’, in Wilde’s Wiles: Studies of the Influences on Oscar Wilde and his Enduring Influence in the Twenty-First Century, ed by Annette M. Magid (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), pp. 35–61.