Review: Gregory Mackie, Beautiful Untrue Things: Forging Oscar Wilde’s Extraordinary Afterlife (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019)

One hand at his hip, the other touching the side of a knowing smile, a Beardsleyan portrait of a confident Oscar Wilde graces the cover of Gregory Mackie’s book. Like the many representations of Wilde that Mackie details within, the portrait is a counterfeit. In his study of Wilde’s earliest biographers, impersonators, forgers, and mediums, Mackie explores various efforts at appropriating and re-forging Wilde’s legacy. &nbsp