I’ve just received an inquiry from a Spanish journalist working in Barcelona for a cultural quiz show for Antena 3, a Spanish Television Channel (the equivalent of NBC’s ‘Who’s still Standing?’).

Her work consists in writing the questions and checking if they are correct  and well formulated, in order to be as precise as possible and make sure that the show doesn’t spread wrong information to its contestants and audience. She was seeking to verify the question: Did Oscar Wilde say Dracula was the best novel ever written?

Here’s my response: 

I never came across any source for this alleged fact during the extensive research that I conducted for my book on Wilde and there are several reasons for doubting strongly that Wilde would have said this. First, Dracula wasn’t published until after Wilde had fallen from the limelight in disgrace. He said very little for public consumption after his release from prison in 1897, the year of Dracula‘s publication. Second, Stoker had married Florence Balcombe, Wilde’s first-love, a loss that Wilde probably carried with him till the end of his days. It is unlikely that Wilde would have shown such magnanimity to the rival to whom he had lost the woman he loved.