This is a readable, salacious, slanderous, entertaining, upsetting, delicious concoction that leaves the reader feeling slightly tarnished, and —depending on your current opinions of Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas— a biography in which none of the main characters, upon scrutiny, are able to maintain an attractive luster.

With a cast of thousands, and based in part on rumours, conspiracy theories, bitchy letters, bitter queens, spurned lovers, blackmailers, rent boys, gutter press, opportunists and profiteers, unsavoury gossip and whispered allegations, whew!, this charming biography sometimes oversteps the mark, always aims lower, and never shies away from making base assertions or scandalous assumptions: such is its appeal.

Letters, gossip, contemporaneous press, and rumours cannot be treated as facts. Even letters between friends and family can be self-promoting, bombastic, idealized, confabulation or outright lies (surely it's not just me who does that!).

Here's an amusing letter Oscar wrote from the south of France, after his release from prison and a year or so after the death of his long suffering wife Constance, in response to a suggestion from Robbie Ross: Oscar Wilde's Devoted Friend that Oscar might consider getting married:

As regards to my marrying again, [Oscar wrote] I am quite sure that you will want me to marry this time some sensible, practical, plain, middle-aged boy, and I don't like the idea at all. Besides I am practically engaged to a fisherman of extraordinary beauty, aged eighteen. So you see there are difficulties.

How much of that letter is "true" or even "true-ish"? It reads to me as friendly bantering and self-mocking, but not literally true in any sense,

I enjoyed this biography, even though I did not always agree with the author's assertions or conclusions. Read this and other biographies will appear sanitized. The rumoured affair between Lord Rosebery (a powerful politician) and Bosie's older brother (who died, probably by suicide) complicates the whole saga of the relationship with Bosie and Oscar's prosecution and public humiliation.

I FINISHED FINALLY god this took me so long but it was worth it. it was SO interesting. i feel like i know way too much about oscar now lmao. the drama, the letters, the huge scandals, the blackmailers, the love affairs; i was fully captivated. also i fully enjoyed learning about gay history in general in the 19th century.

I find everything about Oscar Wilde to be larger than life and thus fascinating. Besides being a brilliant playwright and a clever master of the repartee...he was a truly tragic figure who met a tragic end. Even so, he never stooped to conquer, nor was he ever tempted to be "less than." Therein lies his greatness.

Reading this book is like watching a Greek tragedy unfold — you know how it will end and can only watch breathlessly as the tragic figures destroy themselves. McKenna documents Wilde’s arrogance, vanity, and self-centered nature, and Alfred Lord Douglas’s (Bosie’s) shallowness, egotism, selfishness, greed, lust, and bad temper — all of which Oscar shared, except for Bosie’s temper tantrums. Their ardent and genuine love for each other, along with their promiscuity and seemingly blind lack of discretion, led to their eventual catastrophe.
The book is deeply researched, drawing on Wilde’s and Bosie’s published writings, their letters, from diaries and letters of many, many people involved in their lives, and from public documents, including transcripts and depositions from the Wilde trials. There is plenty of titillating material here. McKenna also elucidates the coded language in many of Wilde’s writings, making clear the homosexual implications, nuances, and intimations.
Over the years, Oscar Wilde’s trials, tribulations, and martyrdom contributed to the eventual liberalization of anti-gay laws—important history for today’s Queer Pride Month.

All about the infamous Oscar Wilde and the trial that led to his imprisonment. He wasn't quite as blameless as one might think. The romance with Lord Douglas was not the reason he was imprisoned. In fact it was never even mentioned in the trial. It was his encounters with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of 'rent boys' between the ages of 14-17 that got him in trouble. Ironically it was not statutory rape, nor prostitution, that was Wilde's legal problem, but sodomy. Nonetheless he was kind to these unfortunate teenagers and had many good qualities, aside from his brilliance as a writer. And the conditions of his imprisonment were barbaric and inhumane. Sadly, he paid the price for the same misdeeds committed by many Victorian men, including Lord Douglas, whose rank probably kept him away from the scandal that destroyed Wilde's reputation.

I watched Stephen Fry in the 1997 movie Wilde, so (of course) I had to read a book about Oscar Wilde. Of all the biographies in my county's library system, this had the best title.

I read this over 15 years ago and still remember parts of it. It does go into great depth about Wilde's disastrous relationship with Bosie, and the trial. The bits that stick out in my mind the most:

* a chambermaid testified that she knew when gay men stayed in a room because the sheets would be soiled with Vaseline and excrement.
* Wilde got in trouble at the jail because he wouldn't stop playing with himself.
* Wilde's friends tried to prevent Bosie and Wilde reuniting after Wilde was released from jail.

The book is not entirely sordid or dirty. It's a decent biography that just happens to be highly readable because of the strange little details that pop up here and there.

Enjoy.

A multiple reread for me, and I'm still using it for research, but quite simply one of the best books on queer m/m culture of British 19th century society and fiction. My only criticism is that the title is all too accurate--it is about Wilde's sex life, and while it gives valuable context to his fiction, sometimes the greatness of his writing can fade a bit into the background because it's primarily interested in his activities with Bosie, rent boys, and other gay men of the period. But exhaustively researched, engagingly written, and an absolute MUST READ for Wilde obsessives like myself. Gift it to the person in your life determined to give too much focus to Wilde's marriage as well.

Neil McKenna presents us with a quite different view of Oscar Wilde, concentrating on Wilde's astonishing erotic odyssey through Victorian London's (and elsewhere) erotic underworld. It is truly a tour de force, drawing on a wide range of sources, many of them previously unpublished (perhaps not surprisingly!).

It all begins so sedately, even though, as the author points out, 'There was something different, even remarkable about Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde when he arrived at Magdalen College, Oxford in October 1874. Despite his sexual preferences, he met and married Constance Mary Lloyd and they had two sons, living a happy life in their early days.

But Wilde could not suppress his desires and he pursued his interests outside his marriage. This put an enormous emotional strain on the marriage and eventually the couple became more distant. By that time Wilde had encouraged friendships from male prostitutes, blackmailers and other undesirables. And many of them were later to re-emerge to speak against him at his subsequent trials.

Considering many letters were destroyed there is a plentiful supply of correspondence which describes Wilde's way of life, some of it to come back to haunt him. And it was his friendship with 'Bosie', Lord Alfred Douglas, that brought him down, as Bosie's father, the Marquis of Queensberry took exception to the friendship and pursued Wilde diligently.

The case went to court and Wilde, despite being urged to flee, remained to face the consequences - and they were severe for once the case against Queensberry was dismissed, he was charged with gross indecency and had to stand trial on his own behalf. As is well known he lost and ended up in gaol, where at least he wrote two major works, 'De Profundis' and 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'.

Neil McKenna magnificently captures his final days in Paris and on the continent, showing that as well as being lonely and depressed, he also had a memorable time, looking markedly better, slighter and younger than he had two years previously, rediscovering his attraction to other men and the attraction of Uranian love. And, quite rightly, he felt that he was a victim of discriminatory laws again men who loved men and that those laws were 'wrong and unjust laws'.

He wrote endless letters while in exile but his literary writing was over for as he replied when asked why he no longer wrote, 'Because I have written all there was to write. I wrote when I did not know life; now that I do know the meaning of life, I have no more to write. Life cannot be written; life can only be lived. I have lived.'

And he lived life to the full to the very end, even though at times he was penniless and hungry. McKenna states that he died an outcast, 'mourned by outcast men', but Wilde, in his heart, knew that he was a martyr in the epic struggle for the freedom of men to love men and he was happily confident in his view that Uranian love would, in time be seen as 'noble'. On that issue he said, 'Yes, I have no doubt we shall win, but the road is long, and red with monstrous martyrdoms.' How right he was!

This is, without a doubt, my favourite biography. Someone (whose name I really should remember) once said that biographies of an author should enhance your reading of their works. This has not just enhanced my reading of Wilde, but revolutionised it. It is hard to underestimate the importance of McKenna's meticulous research.

It is not just Wilde's life that makes this book so interesting (as fascinating as it was) but McKenna's exploration of the homosexual community in Victorian London. Some of his anecdotes are truly extraordinary.

The only criticism I can make is that I wish it was clearer where he got some of his information. Some of it is so outrageous and personal, I am intrigued to know where, when and why it was ever recorded!

One would have thought that there was nothing new to say about Oscar Wilde, but Neil McKenna unearthed some interesting fresh material in US archives, to which he added lashings of imaginative interpretation. This all makes for a great romp of a read -- hence the book's commercial success -- though some more scholarly Wildeans will raise an eyebrow or two.

This is a marvellous biography of Oscar Wilde but it is not definitive, no biography, but after years of splendid biographies looking at Wilde from any number of perspectives but amazingly this is the first biography to attempt provide a biography of Wilde from the perspective of what made him famous/notorious - his sex life. It is actually surprising that it took until 1991 for this aspect Wilde's life to be considered as anything more then something peripheral when, let's be honest, sex may not always be at the centre of our lives but is always important. In Oscar Wilde's case the way his sexual 'history' was side-linned for so long is extraordinary - Wilde was at the centre of the most notorious homosexual scandal, ever, in the UK.

If anyone was going to tell this history verve it would be Neil McKenna. I didn't read this biography until after reading McKenna book 'Fanny & Stella' which, to digress for a moment, was simply superb and at times had me roaring with laughter and astounded at the new information and insights he could bring to an oft told tale.

Is the biography perfect? no and no biography is but it has opened up the subject and no future biographer is going to be able to treat the subject as only relevant to the court cases. Many reviewers have questioned McKenna's use of the notorious Trelawny Backhouse memoirs 'The Dead Past'. Most people dismiss Backhouse because of the demolition job done on Backhouse by Hugh Trevor-Roper in 'The Hermit of Peking'. Certainly Backhouse was a fantasist but Trevor-Roper is also something of a fantasist. In 1963, as Regius Professor of History at Oxford he said:

"Perhaps, in the future, there will be some African history to teach. But at present there is none: there is only the history of the Europeans in Africa. The rest is darkness..."

So Trevor-Roper is not exactly the gold standard when it comes to spotting elephants in the room.

I haven't read Matthew Sturgis's biography of Wilde but when I do I may have to revise some of what I say here. For now I would insist that if you are interested in Wilde and that period this biography is essential reading. It should not be the only book you read. But it will give you great pleasure. Nil McKenna is a joy to read and inspired me to look again both at Wilde, his life, his work, his times and other authors of his era. Books that make you think are priceless because you learn from them an dopen you mind to different ideas and opinions.

Better Book Title: "Anal Sex 101 By Way of Downton Abbey"

I think of this book as the queer bookend to the definitive biography of Wilde written by Ellmann. This one chiefly investigates Wilde's life as a queer man, most specifically his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas and his involvement in the Uranian (queer male) demimonde of the late 19th century.

McKenna expertly weaves an unputdownable narrative of (REALLY KINKY - put that one in yer spank bank) Bosie and Oscar's life together before and after his imprisonment. It's salacious AF, and also fascinating as the author breaks down the coded language of the queer men moving through life on the margins. To say that this is a vast education in queer male history would be a vast understatement.

McKenna doesn't mince details about the transgressive elements of Wilde and Douglas's peccadilloes (namely Bosie's pederasty and the fact that he was without a doubt a prolific sexual predator, which goes far beyond a peccadillo). That being said, I was particularly impressed by his nuanced treatment of the fascinating and extraordinarily fucked up Bosie. It's easy to purely paint him as an evil person, but that is painting with extremely broad brushstrokes. He was fascinating, and an excellent subject for someone writing a character diagnosis in Psych 101. While reading, I kept saying to myself: "The fuck was WITH that asshole?". I still can't figure it out. Have at it, you tell me. I'm at a loss.

This takes me back to the better book title. For this confirmed gender non-binary dyke, this book was a crash course in all the sordid details of bodily functions post anal coitus. I applaud all who celebrate this sexual act because we all party in our own ways. No judging here. That being said, I'll never be able to envision Oscar Wilde's bed linen and nightshirts the same way ever again.