A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.

I give myself a gold star for making it through footnotes in nearly every page.
On the plus side, it was really nice to spend so much time with Oscar Wilde.

Sad sad life.

Even though Oscar was a great writer, he really was super unlucky that he was born back in the victorian era. Even though he really was something. Always trying and writing and focusing on getting the word out for what he thought was right and in the end dying all alone... that's just sad.

He was even begging his friends for money at one point after he got out of jail. Awful life at awfully wrong times.

I didn't read all of this huge book, it was depressing to find out about his later years. I only skimmed parts of it. I love his children's stories.

An exhaustive biography; reading it exhausted me.

It seems obvious that this would get a 5-star review. The wit and genius of Oscar Wilde. A scandalous life. The proven track record of Ellmann. What's not to love?

Answer - nothing. Ellmann doesn't make a single misstep in this astonishing biography. Imagine the challenges facing a Wilde biographer: the contradictions of an outrageous, larger-than-life subject whose brittle public persona masked his inner torments; Wilde's enormous drive, which led to success and acclaim, but also set in motion his ultimate fall from grace. Worse: so much already written, including Wilde's own glittering one-liners - what could anyone presume to add to already crowded record?

But Ellmann, who worked for almost twenty years on this book, doesn't fail to deliver. In what will clearly be the definitive biography, he lays out details of Wilde's life, illuminates the work, and cuts through the brilliant and brittle public persona to show us Wilde's soul. All of this is accomplished with wit, intelligence and compassion -- this book confirmed Ellmann's status as the English professor I always wished I'd had.

His final assessment of Wilde: "He belongs to our world more than to Victoria's. Now, beyond the reach of scandal, his best writings validated by time, he comes before us still, a towering figure, laughing and weeping, with parables and paradoxes, so generous, so amusing, and so right."

If I may be forgiven a paraphrase of Ellmann's own words, this biography is also "so generous, so amusing, and so right." Sadly, overuse by undiscriminating reviewers has made the assessment, 'a tour de force' off-limits in a serious review. But I feel compelled to dust it off anyway, together with a few other adjectives from the forbidden list. Here goes:

"Ellmann's magisterial work, destined to be the definitive biography of Wilde, is a brilliant, breathtaking tour de force."

“He belongs to our world more than to Victoria’s. Now, beyond the reach of scandal, his best writings validated by time, he comes before us still, a towering figure, laughing and weeping, with parables and paradoxes, so generous, so amusing, and so right.”

Sto piangendo, niente da fare.
Una biografia più che degna.

Meticulously researched and well-written biography.

Better Book Title: "Dude, you really need to break up with that asshole."

I've been an Oscar Wilde fan for many decades now, but I was always afraid to read this because it's THE DEFINITIVE BIG GIANT SCARY BIOGRAPHY on him. These kind of books always intimidate me, and until very recently I don't think I had the attention span it takes to take this one on. However, now that the world is spinning down a black hole of dystopian carnage, this book served as a welcome distraction! Instead of checking the news, I just went to read every. damn. footnote. Sad homosexual Victorians, sign me up.

This is the only biography of this type that I couldn't put down, and I was pleasantly surprised at how engrossing it is. I feel like I understand Oscar Wilde much more, and also how creepy the Victorian period was. It's always good to look on the bright side of life, because things could always be so much worse!

The last few chapters are painfully sad, and convey just what life in the worst case scenario could possibly be, except in Paris?

This is a textbook example of "Dude, you should really break up with that asshole" because his boyfriend was a straight up awful person. The only good thing I can say about Lord Alfred Douglas was that he did contribute significantly (within his snobby ass social circle that is) to queer rights at a very early point in history. After that, he pretty much called it a day as far as good deeds are considered.

If you love Oscar Wilde and want to escape reality, you should read this.

This is the Wilde biography that I've owned my whole adult life. Many of Ellmann's observations, as well as Wilde's own, appear in one of my favorite films, Velvet Goldmine. Wilde was developing a worldview that was bombastically modern - "beauty is what matters, not morals - or rather, beauty is morals." Though he was prepared to see his decadent vision through, the world was not. Ellmann chronicles the arc of Wilde's life with feeling and depth of detail, from his American lectures on aestheticism to his famous trial and imprisonment. Some of Ellmann's observations are so clever, so Wildean, that they sound like Wilde would have written them himself. Always a great read and a great reread.

Here's a great little postmodernist snippet from Velvet Goldmine that was pulled almost verbatim from Ellmann. Bandmates from the rock scene of the UK in the 80s discuss the state of the world:

Malcolm : I don't believe that there is much of a future to speak of.
Pearl : We're in a bit of a decadent spiral, aren't we?
Billy : Sinking fast.
Ray : Big Brother, baby, all the way.
Malcolm : Which is why we prefer impressions to ideas.
Billy : Situations to subjects.
Pearl : Brief flights to sustained ones.
Ray : Exceptions to types.
Pearl : And yourself?
Arthur Stuart : What? I'm... I'm just lookin' for a room at the moment.

We all wear a mask, each person kills the thing they love some with a word some by the sword. Truth is love.
This biography I started in my teens and got distracted. I found it too detailed and complex back then. My view of Wilde as a youth was one of pop idolism. Having picked him for my A level English literature coursework my teachers were worried as no one had studied Oscar Wilde in their classes before. It being the 1990s and despite 100 years on from Wildes time homosexuality was still taboo and teachers were forbidden by clause 28 of some Thatcherite law to discuss anything promoting an LGBT lifestyle or identity with their students. It was illegal to acknowledge alternative lifestyle and gay people in English schools in the 90s.
Picking this biography back up again in 2018 as a divorced father in his late 30s my rose tinted spectacular view of Wilde is now one of empathy, remorse and sympathy. Wilde was perpetually bullied and driven to ruin by the English pig the Marquis of Queensbury who appeared to be unhealthily obsessed with Wildes relationship with his son Sir Alfred Douglas.
I can't help thinking that if Wilde had lived nowadays he could live out his life positively as a counsellor for LGBT families or a writer/actor for film and television.
This biography is perfect in that it gives great detail. You can really get an honest account of his trial and the accusations of his sensitive crimes. It sheds great light on the oppression of western society upon its people during the late Victorian age. We are still reeling from the shock of Victorian morality some 120 years on. We are still talking about Wilde, Shelley and Coleridge. People who lived their life as they wanted until it wasn't possible to continue. Poets who were unreliable, selfish, ego centric, unpopular, debters, obsessed with their art and the soul of humanity. I'm so grateful that they pushed the boundaries of our souls to excess and lived a life less ordinary for their time. They were pioneers of the human condition and revolutionary.

'A dreaded sunny day so I'll meet you at the cemetery gates. Keats and Yates are on your side, but you lose, 'cos weird lover Wilde is on mine, surely'. The Smiths Cemetery Gates. 85.

IT was ok.