Description

One of the greatest playwrights in the English language, Oscar Wilde was also a legendary wit and a poetic provocateur. He was put on trial and sentenced to two years of hard labor for “gross indecency” by the same English society whose hypocrisy he had put on stage to great effect. His refusal to renounce his homosexuality and love for Lord Alfred Douglas (“Bosie”) made him first a martyr and later an icon for free love and a myth onto himself. This edition of surviving letters that Wilde wrote to his “own dear darling boy” is a testament to the enduring power and radical force of love. Included are the introductory essays by legendary bookseller A. S. W. Rosenbach and philanthropist William Clark, who first published these letters in 1924, and a little-known letter from Douglas to Wilde.