Hi Nicole, I’m sorry to hear that you’re struggling to find a copy of Wilde’s Women. If you’re in the UK it should be in shops and is certainly available as a hardback or Kindle version from Amazon.co.uk – http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0715649361/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1447330272&sr=1-1

As I had so many women to include in my book I did not analyse the plays in great detail, although I do examine them from a feminist perspective. The only time I can recall specifically linking a character in TIOBE to a real person was as follows:

‘Although his relationships with men, Lord Alfred Douglas in particular, are well documented, Florence Balcombe was not the only woman to excite Oscar’s youthful ardour. During the summer of 1875 , he received an indignant letter from one Dublin matron, reproaching him for kissing her daughter at every opportunity. Having found them in a compromising clinch, she felt compelled to write:
Dear Oscar, I was very much pained the last time I was at your house when I went into the drawing room and saw Fidelia sitting upon your knee. Young as she is, she ought to have (and I told her) the instinctive delicacy that would have shrunk from it – but oh! Oscar, the thing was neither right, nor manly, nor gentlemanlike in you.
Perhaps this was on his mind when he had his Lady Bracknell walk in on young Jack Worthing, down on bended knee before her daughter Gwendolyn: ‘Mr. Worthing! Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous’, she exclaimed.’

I’ll email you the main section relating to TIOBE.

Best, Eleanor

Hi Sheila, thanks for your comment and for sending me Rhoda B’s bio. Yes indeed she is a fascinating woman and gets several pages in my book – has a great Dublin connection too. Wilde uncharacteristicly held a grudge against her for years & gave one of her novels a scathing review once he got the chance. I loved writing about their animosity!

http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199799558/obo-9780199799558-0131.xml