The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde by Neil McKenna

£14.99
Available
Product Ref. (e.g. ISBN, SKU)
9780099415459
Published:
15 Jul 2004
Format:
Paperback
Number of pages:
717 pages
Dimensions:
198x132x39mm
Weight:
0.538kgs
Author:
McKenna argues that our view of Oscar Wilde is determined by Victorian sentimentality. He reveals his relationship with Lord Douglas, and tells of Wilde's last days in Paris. The biography is based on the author's discovery of new source material.

'I have put my genius into my life but only my talent into my work'.

So said Oscar Wilde of his remarkable life - a life more complex, more erotic, more troubled and more triumphant than any of his contemporaries ever knew or suspected.

Neil McKenna's The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde charts fully for the first time Oscar's astonishing erotic odyssey through Victorian London's sexual underworld.
Oscar Wilde emerges as a man driven personally and creatively by his powerful desires for sex with men, and Neil McKenna argues compellingly and convincingly that Oscar's Wilde's life and work can only be fully understood and appreciated in terms of his sexuality.

The book draws of a vast range of sources, many of them previously unpublished, and includes startling new material like the statements made to the police by the male prostitutes and blackmailers ranged against Oscar Wilde at his trial which have been lost for over a century.

Dazzlingly written, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde meticulously and brilliantly reconstructs Oscar Wilde's emotional and sexual life, painting an astonishingly frank and vivid portrait of a troubled genius who chose to martyr himself for the cause of love between men.

About the Author: Neil McKenna is a freelance journalist, particularly for the Guardian and the Independent and a freelance producer and researcher for Channel 4. He is a notable campaigner for gay rights - the Clause 24 debate being largely a result of his work.

More Information
Number of pages 717

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