The work brings together the “full transcribed text of the trial against Oscar Wilde” the publisher points out and considers that the book “is still revealing today, with the culture of cancellation being the order of the day.”
The trial took place at the height of his career as an author and the successful premiere of his play “The Importance of Being Earnest”, in which he uses the double meaning of English vocabulary to make fun of society.
Wilde, born in 1854, had begun as the author of poetry, widely distributed in the society of his time, as well as “trivial comedies for serious people”, such as “Lady Windermere’s Fan”. Years later she married in London with constance lloydwith whom he had two children, during which time he also traveled to Paris, wrote essays and his only novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.
In the midst of that upward path, Wilde was subjected to a trial that initiated John Sholto Douglas9th Marquess of Queensberry, father of Lord alfred douglassuspecting that both had an affair.
In that trial, Wilde was accused of “sodomy and gross indecency”, and was sentenced to two years of hard labor in an English prison, a sentence that had a lot of repercussions and intensified sexual intolerance not only in Great Britain, but also in Europe, to the point that many homosexual artists suffered reprisals and some had to go into exile from their countries of origin.
While in prison, Wilde wrote a lengthy letter to Lord alfred douglas entitled De profundis (1897) and the poem “The Ballad of Reading Jail”. In his letter, Wilde accused Douglas of having distracted him from his art during his years of imprisonment.
Disillusioned with English society and materially and spiritually ruined, once he had served his sentence, in May 1897, he resumed his friendship with the young Douglas and Wilde’s wife refused to meet the writer again, forbidding him to see his children, although he continued to send her money and they never divorced.
Wilde and Douglas lived together for a few months at the end of 1897, near Naples, until the threat of their respective families not to continue sending him funds ended up separating them.
Wilde spent the rest of his life in Paris, where he lived under the assumed name of Sebastian Melmothand died, aged 46.
Source: Ambito
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