De Profundis and Other Prison Writings

Description

A new selection of the powerful and moving letters and poems Wilde wrote in prison, edited with an introduction by Colm T ibin At the start of 1895, Oscar Wilde was the toast of London- a member of the social and intellectual elite, he was widely feted for his most recent stage success, An Ideal Husband. But by May of the same year, Wilde was in prison, bankrupt and with his reputation in ruins. 'De Profundis' is the astonishing letter he wrote to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, from prison; Colm T ibin describes it as Wilde's 'greatest piece of prose-writing'. Also included in this volume is 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol', as well as other letters revealing to the wider world what prison really did to its inmates.

Oscar Wilde (Author) Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He went to Trinity College, Dublin and then to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he began to propagandize the new Aesthetic (or 'Art for Art's Sake') Movement. Despite winning a first and the Newdigate Prize for Poetry, Wilde failed to obtain an Oxford scholarship, and was forced to earn a living by lecturing and writing for periodicals. After his marriage to Constance Lloyd in 1884, he tried to establish himself as a writer, but with little initial success. However, his three volumes of short fiction, The Happy Prince (1888), Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (1891) and A House of Pomegranates (1891), together with his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), gradually won him a reputation as a modern writer with an original talent, a reputation confirmed and enhanced by the phenomenal success of his Society Comedies - Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, all performed on the West End stage between 1892 and 1895. Success, however, was short-lived. In 1891 Wilde had met and fallen extravagantly in love with Lord Alfred Douglas. In 1895, when his success as a dramatist was at its height, Wilde brought an unsuccessful libel action against Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde lost the case and two trials later was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for acts of gross indecency. As a result of this experience he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He was released from prison in 1897 and went into an immediate self-imposed exile on the Continent. He died in Paris in ignominy in 1900. Colm Toibin (External Editor) Colm Toibin was born in Enniscorthy in 1955. He is the author of eight novels including Blackwater Lightship, The Master and The Testament of Mary, all three of which were nominated for the Booker Prize, with The Master also winning the IMPAC Award, and Brooklyn, which won the Costa Novel Award. He has also published two collections of stories and many works of non-fiction. His most recent novel is Nora Webster. He lives in Dublin.

'De Profundis' remains Wilde's greatest piece of prose-writing -- Colm Toibin