Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Oscar Wilde's autobiographical work on suffering, self-realization, and the artistic process De Profundis (Latin for "from the depths") is Oscar Wilde's reconciliation from a life full of pleasure. ...In 1891 the author began an intimate relationship with the young aristocrat Lord Alfred Douglas, known to his friends as Bosie. This affair led to speculations about Wilde's sexuality just as his career was reaching its apex. Ultimately, Bosie's father, the powerful Marquess of Queensberry, accused Wilde of homosexuality. As this conduct was considered a "gross indecency" punishable by hard labor, this was a serious charge, and one that ultimately landed Wilde in prison. It wasn't until January of 1897 that Wilde began to write from his cell. De Profundis, a scathing indictment of his former lover, is the letter that Wilde wrote to Bosie from prison. In addition to detailing the wrongs visited on Wilde by Bosie and his family, De Profundis traces the spiritual growth that Wilde experiences in prison. Having lost everything he holds dear, Wilde transforms his hardship into art. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
This comprehensive and authoritative collection of Oscar Wilde's American interviews affords readers a fresh look at the making of a literary legend. Better known in 1882 as a cultural icon than a ...serious writer (at twenty-six years old, he had by then published just one volume of poems), Wilde was brought to North America for a major lecture tour on Aestheticism and the decorative arts that was organized to publicize a touring opera, Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience, which lampooned him and satirized the Aesthetic movement he had been imported to represent. In this year-long series of broadly distributed and eagerly read newspaper interviews, Wilde excelled as a master of self-promotion. He visited major cities from New York to San Francisco but also small railroad towns along the way, granting interviews to newspapers wherever asked. With characteristic aplomb, he adopted the role as the ambassador of Aestheticism, and reporters noted that he was dressed for the part. He wooed and flattered his hosts everywhere, pronouncing Miss Alsatia Allen of Montgomery, Alabama, the most beautiful young lady he had seen in the United States, adding, This is a remark, my dear fellow, I supposed I have made of some lady in every city I have visited in this country. It could be appropriately made. American women are very beautiful. Confronted at every turn by an insatiable audience of sometimes hostile interviewers, the young poet tried out a number of phrases, ideas, and strategies that ultimately made him famous as a novelist and playwright. Seeing America and Americans for the first time, Wilde's perception often proved as sharp as his wit; the echoes of both resound in much of his later writings. His interviewers also succeeded in getting him to talk about many other topics, from his opinions of British and American writers (he thought Poe was America's greatest poet) to his views of Mormonism. This exceptional volume cites all ninety-one of Wilde's interviews and contains transcripts of forty-eight of them, and it also includes his lecture on his travels in America.
Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) is remembered best for his sharp wit, his comedic plays and for his contribution to aestheticism and decadence. In this collection of essays, however, Wilde writes ...predominantly on socialism, anarchy and libertarianism. He believed in these passionately and was influenced among others by William Morris and John Ruskin.
Over 120 years after Oscar Wilde submitted The Picture of Dorian Gray for publication, the uncensored version of his novel appears here for the first time in a paperback edition. This volume restores ...material, including instances of graphic homosexual content, removed by the novel’s first editor, who feared it would be “offensive" to Victorians.
