OSCAR WILDE: A Certain Genius.(Review)(Brief Article)

BARBARA BELFORD. Random, $29.95 (416p) ISBN 0-679-45734-8

Wilde died on November 30, 1900--thus the timing of this centenary biography -- and media attention to this anniversary could send people in to purchase this new bio of the outrageous but likable dramatist and wit. The standard life is by Richard Ellmann, published posthumously in 1987 and nearly twice as long as this one by Belford, biographer of Violet Hunt and Brain Stoker. Belford's major quarrel with Ellmann is whether Wilde at his death was suffering from the final indignities of syphilis acquired in his youth, but that controversy is not enough to make a case for this new biography. Belford's strategic …