I was under the impression that Brandreth's Wilde series had necessarily come to its end with the last, rather dark outing centred around his imprisonment in Reading Gaol and brief sojourn in Paris before his death. Imagine how pleased I was, then, to discover this new volume, however out of chronological sequence it may be. The story is set in 1894 (not in August-September 1888, the dates of the spree killings generally recognized to be Jack the Ripper's). The conceit is that the Ripper returns and commits at least one more murder. Brandreth's (or rather Wilde's) solution is colourful and takes us through the world of the circus, the sordid streets of London's red-light district, and a 19th-century madhouse. In a blog entry, Brandreth actually makes a claim that the solution Wilde enunciates is the correct one, and is based on new information from documents of a Brandreth forebear.

Amongst the real persons portrayed in this episode, alongside the reliable Arthur Conan Doyle, are writers Lewis Carroll and James Barrie (vignettes only), and Wilde's brother Willie and wife Constance. Hovering over all the proceedings, though only lightly suggested, is a threatening miasma of Wilde's impending doom, suggested by the continued presence of someone following him (presumably at Queensberry's behest).

Brandreth has also incorporated into this novel, as a character and a source of near-contemporary speculation about the Ripper, the policeman (later chief) Macnaghten, who was a neighbour of Wilde's and who wrote a famous report on the likely perpetrator. Wilde contemptuously dismisses Macnaghten's primary suspect, who by coincidence was contemporary of Wilde as a student, and who committed suicide suspiciously soon after the Ripper murders appeared to cease. Brandreth's fictional Wilde claims knowledge that this suspect was guilty of the lesser crime of having an affair with a boy.

Greatly enjoyed, as always.

...you don't need to understand all the intricacies of English grammar to be able to communicate well. I use a computer, but I have no idea how it works. I have a wife, but I have no idea why she stays. I take statins, and while the doctor did explain that they inhibit the HMG-CoA reductase—that rate-limiting enzyme of the mevalonate pathway—all I need to know is that they should help lower my bad cholesterol and reduce the risk of a heart attack.

 

This book can change your life. For the better. Enjoy.

I've tried a few times to post about this, and it's always come out as a mess. So, as I usually do in these circumstances, I'm just going to start with the official blurb:

For anyone who wants to make fewer (not less) grammar mistakes, a lively, effective, and witty guide to all the ins and outs of the English language, reminiscent of the New York Times bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

 

Our language is changing, literary levels are declining, and our grasp of grammar is at a crisis point. From commas to colons, apostrophes to adverbs, there are countless ways we can make mistakes when writing or speaking. But do not despair! Great Britain’s most popular grammar guru has created the ultimate modern manual for English speakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

In this brilliantly funny and accessible guide to proper punctuation and so much more, Gyles Brandreth explores the linguistic horrors of our times, tells us what we’ve been doing wrong and shows us how, in the future, we can get it right every time. Covering everything from dangling participles to transitive verbs, from age-old conundrums like “lay” vs. “lie,” to the confounding influences of social media on our everyday language, Have You Eaten Grandma? is an endlessly useful and entertaining resource for all.

That's just what you get—a funny and accessible guide to grammar, punctuation, and the English language in general (at least in its present form). That's a distinctively British English, it should be noted, but even those of us who've abandoned vestigial "u"s thanks to Noah Webster can profit from it.

A few highlights:
The entire section on the semi-colon is pretty entertaining (and helpful); the entire section covering punctuation makes the entire book worth the purchase price (or library checkout) and the read.
The joke opening his section on the colon is both painful, of questionable taste, and laugh-inducing.
His summary history of the Exclamation Point does in one paragraph, what Shady Characters would do in a page (not saying one approach is better than the other, I enjoyed both books. That paragraph, in particular, made me think of Houston's book).
Brandreth gives a stirring defense for the correct use of the much-abused apostrophe, culminating with:

Give up on the apostrophe, and you’re giving in to chaos. Without the apostrophe, there’s linguistic anarchy. The apostrophe is the symbol of our cause—the mark we need emblazoned on our banners. If we go weak or wobbly in our defense of the apostrophe, we are on the slippery slope to incomprehensibility and confusion.

Brandreth begins his section on the usage of brackets/parenthesis with:

What the British call “brackets,” the Americans call “parentheses”—when they are round brackets, that is. What the Americans call “brackets” are what the British call “square brackets.” It doesn’t cause as much confusion as the meaning of the word “fanny” on either side of the Atlantic, but it serves to underline the truth of the observation made by Oscar Wilde more than 130 years ago: “We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.”

Which points to one of the great distinctives of this book—Brandreth spends a lot of time explaining/illustrating the differences in the English used on both sides of the Atlantic. He later devotes an entire chapter to British vs. American English (part of which found its way to a Saturday Miscellany post in August). It includes a wonderful table for finding equivalent words/phrases/spellings.

The Brandreth Rule is: when in Rome, do as the Romans do—speak English. And if you’re British, do so with a British accent and spell your English the British way. That isn’t always easy—particularly if you haven’t worked out how to opt out of American English autocorrect when using Microsoft Word.

(there are a handful of Brandreth Rules scattered throughout the book, but this is my favorite)
I appreciated that more than once he got to the point where he had to say (paraphrasing), "I don't know why this is why it works this way, but it does, just live with it." Once he said to use the rule or you'll "look an ignorant oik." Which might be my favorite phrase of 2019, "oik" is likely my favorite new vocabulary word. I have to work it into more conversation/writing.
The Scrabble help might be the most turned-to part of the book for most readers.
The tips for increasing word power are fantastic.

I actually could keep going, but I've gone on longer than I thought I would when I started.

I had a blast while reading this—I honestly don't expect everyone will, though. If you're not a language-nerd, aspiring grammar Nazi, or an old-school English teacher, you probably won't enjoy it as much as me. However, if you enjoy quality humor and could use some help with your writing—you will appreciate it. It's handy, it's helpful, it's entertaining—and how many grammar guides can say that? It's the kind of thing that my college-bound daughter could use on her dorm bookshelf (and will probably find), and I know more than a few people who find themselves writing reports and the like for work who could use something like that. If you need help, might as well have a good time while you're at it—and Have You Eaten Grandma is just the thing.

I'm very sorry to discover that this is the last unread Brandreth "Oscar Wilde" mystery left for me. This one takes advantage of the fact that Wilde and Bram Stoker overlapped not just in place (both were Irish and went to university there together; Stoker was actor-manager Henry Irving's factotum at the Lyceum Theatre) but in personal lives (Wilde was an early suitor of Florence Bascombe, Stoker's wife).  Furthermore, Stoker was distantly related to Arthur Conan Doyle, a major figure in these Wilde novels. It was inevitable that he would make an appearance in this series, even though the novel Dracula was published in 1897, too late for it to be directly referenced in any story of Wilde at large and at his best in London. Instead, Stoker's connections are used to take us into an underground (and not very serious) secret society playing with supernatural and vampiric rituals - no doubt thoroughly researched, as usual.

Other threads of the '90s that Brandreth manages to weave in here are the early investigations and experiments into "hysteria" - female mental illness - in London and Paris; and the notoriety of the Prince of Wales' son, Prince Eddy, who was the subject of (discredited) rumour that he was Jack the Ripper. He is planted here as a character partly to provide a red herring; his royal father also plays a fairly crucial part in the plot, in that he and the dignity of the royal house are the reason why Wilde & Conan Doyle's investigations are both commissioned and then suppressed secretly. The Duchess whose murder precipitates the whole thing is, of course, fictional, but the name and the situation are realistic enough that you have to confirm that with a little external Sherlocking on your own.

I really liked the multi-layered narrative here; since the not-so-underlying theme was female sexuality (and violence against it), the story being told through a sequence of letters, telegrams and diaries, mostly addressed to or directly referencing Mrs. Wilde, Mrs. Conan Doyle, and Mrs. Stoker, gave the narrative a welcome context and complexity.

And Wilde's relationship with the young man who at least put himself forward as a genuine vampire was, to say the least, interesting...

The sixth of the Brandreth Oscar Wilde murder mysteries, this is in many ways my favourite. That is, I suppose, because for me these books have been more about Brandreth's re-creation of Wilde's voice and milieu, and the murder mystery in each has been secondary. So this novel, which takes place during and just after Wilde's brutal incarceration for homosexuality, is enormously satisfying in its evocation of time and place, even though, by necessity, we lose Conan Doyle as a character, and also by necessity, the whole tone is quite a bit darker than in the rest of the series.

Brandreth is not nearly as sorry for Wilde as he was for himself - unsurprisingly - in De Profundis, his essay-letter from jail. His painful separation from the unworthy Douglas, which of course obsessed the real Wilde, barely gets a mention here. Instead, we get a gallery of minor characters, including some gay and/or cross-dressing, and on every step of the villainy ladder. The delight, of course, is in Wilde's acute observations of them.

While I'm in hopes this won't be the last "Oscar Wilde and...", it comes chronologically very close to the end of Wilde's life, so if we are to have another, it will either have to be absolutely on the Paris deathbed, or dip back into earlier (and more light-hearted) times. I'm up for either, Mr. Brandreth.

The Premise: Oscar Wilde, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Robert Sherard team up with Bram Stoker to solve a mystery regarding the murder of a dutchess at her own party, when she's found dead with two tiny puncture marks on her throat.

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed the historic atmosphere Gyles Brandreth creates in his writing, in which the mystery unfolds through diary entries, newspaper clippings, telegrams and letters. This mystery also deals with "hysteria" and is highly entertaining because of all the strong personalities involved. All in all, a fun, fast paced read in which I, the reader, felt as if I were part of this motley literary mystery crew.