TRAFFICKING IN STRANGE WEBS
A Survey of Websites : Introduction
MARCH 2010
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‘I don’t want it put straight, Leaf.   I only want the key.’ ‘Well, sir, you’ll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it.  Why, it hasn’t been opened for nearly five years – not since his lordship died.’
The following appears on The Victorian Research Web over Patrick Leary’s signature:
The 19th-Century London Stage: An Exploration
A remarkable feat of research organized in imaginative hypertext form, this site was created by PhD. students at the University of Washington School of Drama, working under the direction of Professor Jack Wolcott.
UPDATE: When Professor Wolcott retired in 2004, he expected that the University of Washington would leave these webpages on the university's server, much as a library book would remain on the shelf. Instead, all of the files associated with this much admired and widely referenced collaborative resource, which had been in progress since 1995, were simply deleted. A few bits and pieces of the site may be salvaged from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, but for most practical purposes this valuable project has been destroyed forever. I leave the description here as a reminder of the extreme fragility of online scholarly resources.
We also leave the description here. Now read on.
Each month since our inception in June 2001 until our interruption in October 2003, we have given brief reports of websites concerned with Wilde and his circle, or otherwise of possible interest to readers, revisiting each annually.  In June 2003 we brought together our reviews on to this single page, indicating inactive sites with the symbol X.  The Web is scattered with sites, many moribund, some worthless, and although most give links to other sites, little in the way of evaluation has hitherto been attempted.  We have made this start, adding to those that we recommend for their usefulness the symbol § on the Guide Michelin principle.  A little silent updating and correcting has also been made, largely syntactical.
Since the reconstruction of July 2006, no new francophone sites have been added, but these are featured on two pages of the Société Oscar Wilde (the French branch of The Oscar Wilde Society) and its bulletin, our sister publication rue des beaux arts, which will receive regular additions. The two pages are titled ‘Liens’ and ‘Liaisons’. The additions will be announced in rue des beaux arts before posting on to the page. Link to this by clicking the logo of the Société:
Updating was briefly resumed w.e.f. January 2007; there was then a break until May 2008 when the whole was radically reconstructed; it has been updated in March 2010. The list has now been split into separate pages, and may be split further in future: there is a Table of Contents below.
More sites will be added in time, and we encourage readers to nominate sites.
On each page derelict or vanished sites are indicated by italics in the Table of Contents, and follow the main list. If they are restored on the internet, they will resume their rightful place here.
Oscar Wilde websites
Sites about Wilde’s contemporaries
Other useful sites
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