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Who really said it

There is a Conspiracy of Silence Against Me. What Should I Do, Oscar?" "Join It

Not Augustine Birrell — the retort is Oscar Wilde’s Oscar Wilde 1854–1900 · Irish poet, playwright and critic
Disputed Free to reuse

Wilde made the joke, but not to the poet who prompted it. A neglected poet complained to the Liberal politician Augustine Birrell that there was a conspiracy of silence against his book; Birrell, stuck for a reply, put the problem to Wilde, who told him what he should have said. Birrell was telling the story at a dinner party on 19 April 1893, and it reached print in the face-to-face form people now repeat by October 1894.

Last verified 30 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“There is a Conspiracy of Silence Against Me. What Should I Do, Oscar?" "Join It” Oscar Wilde, advising Augustine Birrell on the reply he should have given a neglected poet. Recorded in Robert Harborough Sherard, The Real Oscar Wilde (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1916), 300–302; told by Birrell at a dinner on 19 April 1893 and first printed, in the face-to-face form, in The Critic on 13 October 1894. Wilde did not say it to the poet directly. · Verbatim: “"A conspiracy of silence! My dear fellow, join it at once."”

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Augustine Birrell. Use the credit shown above instead.

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In context

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Provenance

The source

Best-evidenced account
The Real Oscar Wilde
Recorded by
Robert Harborough Sherard, 1916, pp. 300–302, quoting Augustine Birrell
Earliest dated telling
Sir Algernon West’s diary, 19 April 1893 — published 1922
Earliest in print
The Critic, 13 October 1894, p. 240 — the face-to-face version, poet unnamed

“That reminds me of a certain poet who came to me once upon a time and complained that his works were neglected. He said there was a conspiracy of silence. Of course I felt very sorry for him, but I was really puzzled what to say. I mentioned this to a well-known wit, who exclaimed quite angrily: ‘You did not know what to say! Do you really mean to tell me that you did not know what to say?’ ‘No, upon my word I did not.’ ‘Of course, you should have said: “A conspiracy of silence! My dear fellow, join it at once.”’” Verbatim, pp. 301–302

Birrell does not name the wit in this account. Sherard, printing it, identifies him as Wilde and adds — “Oscar seems here to have been quick in repartee” — and in Algernon West’s diary entry Birrell names Wilde outright.

Read Sherard’s The Real Oscar Wilde (1916)

How we verified this

  • 19 April 1893 — the earliest dated telling, and it is Birrell’s. Sir Algernon West’s diary records a dinner at Asquith’s where the table “discussed whether Oscar Wilde was really witty; Birrell contended he was, and gave this instance: He had met L. Morris, who said, ‘I have written a book, and not a paper nor a review has alluded to it. There is a conspiracy of silence.’ ‘Directly after, I met Oscar Wilde and asked him what I ought to have said. “You should have said,” answered Oscar Wilde: “My dear Morris, join it yourself.”’” Chapter X of the diary is headed 1893. Private Diaries of Sir Algernon West, p. 134 ↗
  • 13 October 1894 — the story reaches print in The Critic, credited to The Bookman, already in the form people repeat: the poet asks Wilde directly and Wilde answers “Join it.” The poet is left nameless. Quote Investigator, which reproduces the passage ↗
  • 1916 — Sherard prints Birrell’s own account and says plainly why he doubts the face-to-face version: “I never believed that Oscar Wilde would have said such a thing to a brother poet, because I never knew him wilfully to hurt anybody’s feelings.” The Real Oscar Wilde, pp. 300–302 ↗
  • The verdict — Quote Investigator concludes that Wilde “crafted this witty chastisement, but did not mock Lewis Morris directly,” finding Sherard’s and West’s testimony plausible. Quote Investigator ↗
Public domain

Every source for this exchange was published long before the 1931 United States copyright cut-off: The Critic in 1894, Sherard’s The Real Oscar Wilde in 1916 and West’s Private Diaries in 1922. Wilde himself died in 1900. The wording quoted here is in the public domain in the United States.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Often misattributed

The words are Wilde’s. Almost everything else about the way this story is told has moved — who was asked, who answered, and to whose face.

Augustine Birrell relayed it, didn’t coin it

Quote Investigator lists Birrell among the candidate speakers, and he is the source of the best-evidenced account — but in that account he is explicitly the man who could not think of a reply: “I was really puzzled what to say.” The line came from the wit he consulted. Quote Investigator ↗

“What should I do, Oscar?” — the poet asking Wilde to his face later variant

This is the 1894 newspaper form, and it is the one everyone repeats. Wilde’s own circle disputed it: Sherard thought Wilde never wilfully hurt anyone’s feelings, and that the poet was “insufficiently popular to excite anybody’s hostility.” The Real Oscar Wilde, p. 300 ↗

Clyde Fitch repeated

In 1907 Life ran the joke as the American playwright Clyde Fitch’s, told about an aspiring novelist. The anecdote was already thirteen years in print by then; Quote Investigator allows that Fitch may have used the punchline but not that he originated it. Quote Investigator ↗

Sir Lewis Morris the target, not the author

Named by Birrell in 1893 and by later retellings, Morris was a popular Anglo-Welsh poet whose verse the reviewers ignored. He is the man complaining, never the man answering.

Wilde coined it; Birrell carried the complaint to him. Quote Investigator’s full chronology ↗

Context

Why it mattered

The setting of the earliest telling is almost better than the joke. The diary of Sir Algernon West records a dinner at Asquith’s on 19 April 1893 — Birrell, John Morley, the Lytteltons, J. Tennant — at which the table fell to arguing whether Oscar Wilde was really witty. Birrell said he was, and produced this story as his evidence.

That is the same day A Woman of No Importance was first given at the Haymarket Theatre in London, and West notes in the same entry that his wife had been to see it. Wilde’s reputation was the evening’s subject in more than one room.

A conspiracy of silence! My dear fellow, join it at once.

Read the full story

The fuller version matters because it changes the joke’s cruelty. In the popular form Wilde tells a struggling poet, to his face, to help the world ignore him. In Birrell’s form Wilde is coaching a friend on the reply he wished he had made — still merciless about the poet, but delivered safely out of earshot.

Sherard, who knew Wilde, thought the distinction decisive, and printed Birrell’s account specifically to correct the record. His own comment on it is the shrewdest thing anyone has said about Wilde’s reputation as a talker: “I think that for the most part the good things he said were elaborated after the event.”

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Creativity Failure

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: “Conspiracy of Silence”quoteinvestigator.com

The full investigation: the 1894 first printing, the Birrell and West accounts, the Clyde Fitch claim, and the conclusion that Wilde coined it but did not say it to Morris.
Sherard, The Real Oscar Wilde (1916)archive.org

Full scan. Birrell’s account of the exchange is on pp. 300–302, in chapter XIX.
Private Diaries of Sir Algernon West (1922)archive.org

Full scan of the John Murray edition. The 19 April 1893 dinner-party entry, in which Birrell names Wilde, is on p. 134.
Oscar Wildeen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the poet and playwright (1854–1900) to whom the retort belongs.
Augustine Birrellen.wikipedia.org

The Liberal politician (1850–1933) who was asked first, and who told the story afterwards.
Sir Lewis Morrisen.wikipedia.org

The Anglo-Welsh poet (1833–1907) named as the complainant — the target of the joke, not its author.
A Woman of No Importanceen.wikipedia.org

Wilde’s play, first given on 19 April 1893 at the Haymarket Theatre, London — the same day as the diary entry that records Birrell telling this story.

The author

About Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

1854–1900 · Irish poet, playwright and critic

Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet, playwright and critic, and by the early 1890s one of the most popular and influential dramatists in London. A Woman of No Importance — the play West’s wife had been to see on the night this story was told — was first given at the Haymarket Theatre that very day, 19 April 1893. Wilde’s reputation as an instant wit is partly a construction: his friend Robert Sherard, who knew him well, thought most of his best lines were “elaborated after the event,” and this anecdote is a good example of one polished in the retelling.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Robert Harborough Sherard, The Real Oscar Wilde (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1916), 300–302, quoting Augustine Birrell. Earliest dated telling: Algernon West, Private Diaries of the Rt. Hon. Sir Algernon West, ed. Horace G. Hutchinson (London: John Murray, 1922), 134, entry of 19 April 1893. Earliest printing: “The Lounger,” The Critic, no. 660 (October 13, 1894): 240. Chronology per Garson O’Toole, Quote Investigator, “There Is a Conspiracy of Silence Against Me. What Should I Do, Oscar?” (April 4, 2011).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘There is a Conspiracy of Silence Against Me. What Should I Do, Oscar? Join It’?” Last verified 30 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/there-is-a-conspiracy-of-silence-against-me-what-should-i/

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