Biography, vol. 28, no. 3 (2005)

Editors’ Note, p. iii

ARTICLES

Heidi Kolk
Tropes of Suffering and Postures of Authority in Margaret Fuller’s European Travel Letters, p. 377
This article traces the prodigal child mythos in Fuller’s autobiographical travel letters, arguing that the povera soletta and similar types appearing in her later correspondence were the culmination of the material realities and competitive practices inherent in nineteenth-century travel experience.

Peter Dickinson
Oscar Wilde: Reading the Life After the Life, p. 414
Oscar Wilde has repeatedly been subjected to posthumous conscription by scholars, critics, writers, and artists as the exemplary literary, sexual, and national outlaw. This article considers both the Anglo and the American production and reception of these other(ed) Oscars across two performative contexts: contemporary drama, where in the years preceding the centenaries of Wilde’s trials and death, several plays were staged which offered a mix of documentary and dramatic reassessments of his life; and recent cinema, where representations include Brian Gilbert’s earnest biopic Wilde and Todd Haynes’s queerly revisionist Velvet Goldmine. The article concludes with a few observations on Will Self ’s recent novel Dorian: An Imitation.

REVIEWS

Character and Conversion in Autobiography: Augustine, Montaigne, Descartes, Rousseau, and Sartre, by Patrick Riley, p. 433
Reviewed by Ann Hartle

Semiologies of Travel: From Gautier to Baudrillard, by David Scott, p. 436
Reviewed by Chris Bongie

“I Foresee My Life”: The Ritual Performance of Autobiography in an Amazonian Community, by Suzanne Oakdale, p. 441
Reviewed by Jonathan D. Hill

Gender, Genre and Identity in Women’s Travel Writing, edited by Kristi Siegel, p. 444
Reviewed by Helen M. Buss

Working Against Odds: Stories of Disabled Women’s Work Lives, by Mary Grimley Mason, p. 447
Reviewed by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

REVIEWED ELSEWHERE, p. 452
Excerpts from recent reviews of biographies, autobiographies, and other works of interest

LIFELINES, p. 513
Upcoming events, calls for papers, and news from the field

CONTRIBUTORS, p. 514