Merlin Holland

Merlin Holland ( born 1945 in London) is an English journalist and only grandson of the writer Oscar Wilde. Merlin Holland lives in France.

Life

After the process in which Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years of forced labor for homosexuality, saw Holland's grandmother, wild wife Constance Wilde, forced the name "Holland" to accept, as a Swiss hotel owner her and her children had the door. Merlin Holland in 2000 was considering a name change back to Wilde, but first wanted to publish his two books in order not to be hold to want to get through the famous name of an advantage. He did not do it eventually. "The fact to bear a different name remains simply an eternal reproach to the Victorian hypocrisy. " ( Holland )

In the family of Holland in the 1950s and 1960s, Oscar Wilde was a topic about which you did not talk. " You have to imagine, we had no common memories of him, my father, my mother and me. Also, I think the French or the Germans have always viewed Wild primarily as an artist. The Englishman looked at him then, first as homosexuals and criminals. " ( Holland )

At the age of five years, Merlin Holland put in school ignorant and ease his arm around the table neighbors, his best friend. The teacher explained to the two. Holland interpreted this later than the typical British action in dealing with Wilde and his homosexuality. This raises Holland his compatriots also the widespread notion before that homosexuality is inherited.

After studying languages ​​at Oxford and working in the paper industry, Holland acted with ceramics.

Holland, who devoted himself to writing at the age of 47 years, published several biographical books about his grandfather, including Oscar Wilde album and Oscar Wilde in cross-examination - The first complete transcript of Queensberry process, which, since 2004, in a editing of radio play Norbert Schaeffer exists.

Works

• Oscar Wilde in cross-examination - The first complete transcript of Queensberry process. Karl Blessing, 2003 ISBN 3-89667-240-1 Munich
• The Oscar Wilde album. Karl Blessing, Munich 1997 ISBN 3-89667-077-8 (Photography)
• Oscar Wilde in cross-examination. Adapted and directed by: Norbert Schaeffer. Prod: NDR / SWR, 2004 ( radio play; audiobook edition by Random House Audio, ISBN 3-89830-930-4 ).