WILDE WIT

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Darcy Sullivan poses a challenge to all readers — can you be as witty as Oscar Wilde?

“Wit is the ability to say entirely the wrong thing in precisely the right way”

Now that sounds like an Oscar Wilde quote – but it isn’t. Its author is Darcy Alexander Corstorphine, the winner of last year’s Wilde Wit Competition, run by The Oscar Wilde Society. We started this competition in part because so many quotes attributed to Oscar Wilde aren’t really his at all. “Be yourself, everyone else is taken” is a good example. Such faux mots show how influential the Irish writer’s sayings are. People don’t just memorise them, they make them up.

The Wilde Wit Competition gives you a chance to do the same. The rules are simple (see below). Three winners will receive signed copies of Oscar Wilde: A Man For Our Times, a beautiful catalogue of Jeremy Mason’s Wilde collection published by Bonhams, which has been graciously supplied by Mr. Mason.

Chap readers are, of course, among the finest of modernday wits, making this magazine the perfect sponsor, along with The Oldie. So if you’re ready to match wits with Wilde – and clever people worldwide, who submitted more than 500 entries last year – show us what you’ve got.

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRIES AT: oscarwildesociety.co.uk/wilde-wit

Enter by 15th December 2021 • Up to 10 entries allowed per contestant • All entries must be original • Anyone can enter

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