[Ads-l] Quote Origin: Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious (Fabricated Oscar Wilde)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The statement in the subject line is usually attributed to Oscar Wilde
because it appeared in the 1931 book "Conversations with Oscar Wilde"
by A. H. Cooper-Prichard. Unfortunately, the conversations in this
book were fabricated!

The fictional nature of Cooper-Prichard's book was discussed on page
75 of the January 1997 issue of the journal "The Wildean" which is
published by The Oscar Wilde Society:

[Begin excerpt]
The book is a tolerably amusing series of quite lengthy verbatim
'conversations' between Wilde, Walt Whitman, Whistler, William Morris,
Lord Leighton and sundry persons with such names as Lady Flapdoodle,
the Rev. Sandbagge, and the Hon. Cholmondeley Danglars. How could
anyone mistake this for a biographical work?
[End excerpt]

Thanks to researcher John Cooper who operates the website
oscarwildeinamerica.org. Cooper notified me that Cooper-Prichard's was
writing fiction.

Here is a link to the Quote Investigator article:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/06/28/patriot/

Feedback welcome
Garson O'Toole

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org