Robert Sherard

Robert Harborough Sherard (3 December 1861 – 30 January 1943) was an English writer and journalist. He was a friend, and the first biographer, of Oscar Wilde, as well as being Wilde's most prolific biographer in the first half of the twentieth century.

Life

Robert Harborough Sherard was born Robert Harborough Sherard Kennedy on 3 December 1861 at Putney, England, the son of Reverend Bennet Sherard Calcraft Kennedy (illegitimate son of the 6th Earl of Harborough) and Jane Stanley Wordsworth, the granddaughter of William Wordsworth. A ruddy country gentleman with tremendous gusto and a gift for energetic doggerel. He dropped the surname Kennedy upon moving to Paris in late 1882.

He was married in turn to Marthe Lipska in 1887, Irene Osgood in 1908, and Alice Muriel Fiddian in 1928.

Works

Biographies

• Emile Zola: A Biographical and Critical Study. London: Chatto & Windus, 1893.
• Alphonse Daudet: a biographical and critical study (1894)
• The Life of Oscar Wilde. London: T. Werner Laurie, 1906.
• The Real Oscar Wilde: To be used as a Supplement to, and in Illustration of "The Life of Oscar Wilde". London: T. Werner Laurie, 1917.
• The Life and Evil Fate of Guy de Maupassant (1926)
• Oscar Wilde Twice Defended from André Gide's Wicked Lies and Frank Harris's Cruel Libels; to Which Is Added a Reply to George Bernard Shaw, a Refutation of Dr G.J. Renier's Statements, a Letter to the Author from Lord Alfred Douglas and an Interview with Bernard Shaw by Hugh Kingsmill. Chicago: Argus Book Shop, 1934.
• Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris and Oscar Wilde. New York: Greystone Press, 1937.

Novels

• A Bartered Honour (1883)
• After the Fault (1906)

Poetry

Whispers (1884)

Non-Fiction

• The White Slaves of England (l897)
• The Cry of the Poor (1901)
• The Closed Door (1902)
• The Child Slaves of Britain (1905)
• Modern Paris: Some Sidelights on Its Inner Life. London: T. Werner Laurie, 1912.

Autobiography

• Oscar Wilde: The Story of an Unhappy Friendship. London: privately printed, 1902. London: Greening & Co., 1905.
• Twenty Years in Paris: Being Some Recollections of a Literary Life. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1905.

Papers

• University of Reading (Reading, UK) (Papers purchased 1 Feb. 1964 from Rupert Hart-Davis).

References

• O'Brien, Kevin H.F. "Irene Osgood, John Richmond Limited and the Wilde Circle." Publishing History 22 (1987): 73-93.
• O'Brien, Kevin H.F. "Robert Sherard: Friend of Oscar Wilde." English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 28 (1985): 3-29.
• O'Brien, Kevin H.F. "Sherard, Robert Harborough." The 1890s, An Encyclopedia of British Literature, Art & Culture Ed. G.A. Cevasco. New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1993.