Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs Oscar Wilde

Exeter Library Live

Press Release: Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs Oscar Wilde

Thursday 26th January, Exeter Central Library

7.30pm

Tickets – £4 available from Exeter Phoenix Box Office, Waterstones stores or on the door

Exeter Library live presents Franny Moyle, the talented new biographer of Mrs Oscar Wilde. Franny will join us to read from her book and answer questions about the compelling Constance. She’ll discuss her approach to research, and the fascinating discoveries she made when writing this book. We’ll also be giving away five signed copies on the night.

Constance Lloyd and Oscar Wilde married in 1884 and until 1895 held a privileged place in society. They had two sons and lived a decadent lifestyle as a celebrity couple. Constance was a popular children’s author, a fashion icon, and a leading campaigner for women’s rights. Mrs Oscar Wilde was a phenomenon in her own right.

1895 was the year that changed everything for the Wilde family. Wilde was convicted of homosexual crimes and imprisoned for two years. Constance changed her surname to Holland, was forced to flee to the Continent with her two sons, and her glittery literary and political career ended abruptly. She lived in exile until her death in 1898.

With exclusive access to more than 300 of Constance’s unpublished letters, Franny Moyle now tells Constance’s story with a fresh eye and new material. Moyle brings to life the story of a woman at the heart of fin-de-siècle London and the Aesthetic movement. In a compelling and moving tale of an unlikely couple caught up in a world unsure of its moral footing, she uncovers key revelations about a woman who was the victim of one of the greatest betrayals of all time.

Franny Moyle has a degree in English and History of Art from St John's College, Cambridge and is the author of Desperate Romantics. She enjoyed a career in arts programming at the BBC that culminated in her becoming the corporation's first Commissioner for Arts and Culture. She is now a freelance executive producer and writer as well as a director of the Hackney Empire.

Praise for Constance

“Franny Moyle’s biography sets the record straight…Franny does not gloss over Constane’s failures as a mother, nor her wilful blindness as a wife, but leaves us with a picture of a brave woman who married the wrong man- but loved him all the same.” --- Daily Mail

“…entrancing biography…Moyle’s account, the first to draw on more than 300 of Constance’s unpublished latters, is delightful, sad, and entirely convincing; her last chapters reduced this hardened reader to tears…” --- Guardian

“In her gripping new book, Franny Moyle reclaims Constance from the dusty closet out of which Oscar so splendidly and yet so disastrously emerged…Wilde’s reputation has long since been restored. In her wonderful book, Moyle resets the balance, gloriously.” –-- The Times

"Franny Moyle has read far more of Constance's letters than I have, and her book now replaces and sometimes corrects, the earlier ones on Mrs Wilde by Anne Clark Amor and Joyce Bentley...presents a full portrait of an intelligent, committed young woman trying to make an independent life for herself in a London still dominated by men...Franny Moyle tells the poignant story of Constance in the aftermath of Wilde's trials and imprisonment, and of her brave attempts to keep in contact with him despite her suffering." --- Irish Times

“Illuminating book…Moyle has been given access to an archive of unpublished family letters that show the courtship, marriage and its aftermath from the perspective of ‘Mrs Oscar’. It is a revelation and will go some way towards correcting history’s view of Constance as a succubus who somehow contributed to Oscar’s ruin” --- The Lady

Notes for editors
Contact Devon County Press Office : Hannah Wicks - Devon Newscentre - Devon County Council - 01392 382588 - twitter.com/devoncc

Cyprus Well, Tracey Guiry, CEO 07540 723523, tguiry@cypruswell.org

Exeter Library Live is a programme of live literature events with authors, illustrators, poets and book lovers which aims to bring the very best UK reading and writing experiences to the City. It is supported by Arts Council England, Devon Library Services, Cyprus Well and Waterstones.

For more information visit http://www.cypruswellcommunity.org/