Review
PRAISE FOR THE COMPLETE LETTERS OF OSCAR WILDE: "The scholarship of Holland and Hart-Davis is as impeccable as their subject's wit, while the letters themselves bear comparison with any more conventional form of literary art." Times Literary Supplement "Meticulousy edited, intelligently annotated, the letters were a biographer's dream." Irish Times "These letters give us the human side of Wilde's legend and its human cost." Observer "The most comprehensive collection yet of Wilde's correspondence, charting his development from ambitious young man about town to literary dandy and tortured outcast" Guardian "To have the full weight of his letters published is almost like living his life with him...one puts down the letters heavy with mixed emotions - admiration, sorrow and exasperation." Daily Mail "Even those who know it well will once more fall under the spell of Wilde's charmed words as he sings his way to oblivion. This is a marvellous volume, fully worthy of Wilde's own genius." The Times "Oscar Wilde writes his own life in the newly revised and expanded Complete Letters. The one essential book on the subject." The Independent Books of the Year
The tribulations of Oscar Wilde are already well known, and now from the great man's grandson we get one of his trials as well. Merlin Holland never knew his grandfather in life but as a boy he was aware of a family scandal that must only be talked about in cyphered ways. It was not until the age of 15, while rummaging through a cupboard, that he discovered a secret file full of press cuttings amassed by his father Vyvyan, Oscar's son. The files related to prosecutions of homosexuals, and the public's attitude towards homosexuality as the sin it was then considered to be (in the late 1950s homosexual intercourse was still illegal). It may have been then also that Holland realized his grandfather had been at the centre of one of the 19th century's greatest celebrity scandals. For 40 years Holland has been researching the life of Oscar Wilde and has written three previous books about his grandfather. One of them, The Complete Letters, revealed much about Wilde's character as opposed to the persona he wanted the public to see. Now, in this latest book, Holland provides a complete court transcript of his grandfather's libel action against the Marquess of Queensberry - an action that was to prove Wilde's undoing and ultimately lead to the destruction of his reputation and, two court cases later, to his jailing. The transcript takes up virtually the entire book and it says far more about Victorian prejudices than can any potted history. It also reveals flashes of Wilde's suaveness and wit, and exposes his shocking extravagances. Wilde's infatuation for Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas had never been doubted - but the Marquess of Queensberry dared to suggest their relationship went beyond what was decent. Hence the libel action. Holland admits that bringing the action proved to be his grandfather's greatest misjudgement. As for our supposedly more enlightened times, Holland is dismissive. 'Little has changed over a century where fame, sex, pride and libel are shaken up into their intoxicating cocktail of human weakness,' he writes. His grandfather would no doubt have agreed, but perhaps more pithily. (Kirkus UK)
Julian Barnes, Guardian Books of the Year 2003
'A thrilling read'
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