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Percival Wilde

American writer (1887–1953)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ7167157
Source-derived summary

Percival Wilde (New York City, March 1, 1887 – September 19, 1953) was an American author and playwright who wrote novels and numerous short stories and one-act plays. He also authored a textbook on the theater arts. Native to New York City, Wilde graduated from Columbia University in 1906, and worked for a time as a banker. He began writing plays in 1912, and joined The Lambs Club in 1947.

Wilde's plays were especially popular in the Little Theatre Movement.

List of works

Novels

The Devil's Booth (1930)

Mystery Week-End (1938)

Inquest (1938)

Design for Murder (1941)

Collections of short stories

Rogues in Clover (1929)

P. Moran, Operative (1947)

Plays

Dawn and One Act Plays Of Life Today (1915) ISBN 978-0-548-52580-7

Dawn

The Hour of Truth

The Noble Lord

The Traitor

A House of Cards

Playing With Fire

The Finger of God

Confessional, and Other American Plays (1916)

Confessional

The Beautiful Story ISBN 978-1-4254-7780-6

The Villain in the Piece ISBN 978-1-4254-7777-6

A Question of Morality ISBN 978-1-4254-7779-0

According to Darwin ISBN 978-1-4254-7778-3

The Unseen Host, and Other War Plays (1917) ISBN 978-0-548-94615-2

The Reckoning (1922)

Eight Comedies For Little Theaters ISBN 978-0-548-52675-0

Films (Story)

Moonlight Follies (1921)

The Guttersnipe (1922)

The Rise of Duton Lang (1955)

Nonfiction

The Craftmanship of One-Act Plays (1923)

References

External links

Works by Percival Wilde at Project Gutenberg

Works by Percival Wilde at Faded Page (Canada)

Works by or about Percival Wilde at the Internet Archive

Works by Percival Wilde at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)

Wilde, Percival (Open Library)

Percival Wilde at IMDb

Finding aid to Percival Wilde letters at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Editorial summary

“Percival Wilde” enters the record as american writer (1887–1953). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Percival, Wilde and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1887, 1953, 1906, 1912—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1887-03-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Percival, Wilde and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Percival Wilde” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Percival, Wilde and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7167157. VIAF identifies the subject as 64373228. The Library of Congress control number is n80050877. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1887, 1953, 1906 and 1912.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Percival Wilde”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Percival Wilde primary sources, Percival Wilde archive and Percival research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Percival Wilde”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Percival Wilde” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.