Teleny, or, The Reverse of the Medal, is a pornographic novel, first published in London in 1893. The authorship of the work is unknown, but it has long been attributed to Oscar Wilde. Recent criticism has suggested that, while Wilde probably did not write the work himself, he may well have been involved in its production and/or circulation, perhaps in some sort of editorial or advisory capacity. Set in fin-de-siècle Paris, its concerns the magne...
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Teleny, or, The Reverse of the Medal, is a pornographic novel, first published in London in 1893. The authorship of the work is unknown, but it has long been attributed to Oscar Wilde. Recent criticism has suggested that, while Wilde probably did not write the work himself, he may well have been involved in its production and/or circulation, perhaps in some sort of editorial or advisory capacity. Set in fin-de-siècle Paris, its concerns the magnetic attraction and passionate though ultimately tragic affair between a young Frenchman named Camille de Grieux and the Hungarian pianist René Teleny. The novel is significant as one of the earliest pieces of English-language pornography to explicitly and near-exclusively concern homosexuality (following The Sins of the Cities of the Plain, published in 1881); as well as for a lush and highly literate prose style - and a relatively complexity and depth of character and plot development - that give it as much in common with the Aesthetic...
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