Merlin Holland

Renowned for his endlessly quotable pronouncements, Oscar Wilde cut a dashing figure in late Victorian London … until his tragic downfall resulting from an ill-judged libel action. We remember him not only for his famous trial and imprisonment, but also for a “devil’s dictionary” of timeless aphorisms and for the enduring brilliance of plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde's life resembles his early short story, "The Remarkable Rocket", which, rising from nowhere in a shower of sparks, explodes and falls to earth, exclaiming as it goes out, "I knew I should create a great sensation." Merlin Holland expertly traces the arc of his illustrious ancestor's life, from his birth in Dublin in 1854 as Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, to a brilliant career at Oxford University where his reputation for dandyish wit was first honed, through to his conquest of the drawing rooms and theatres of fashionable London, culminating in disgrace and imprisonment at the hands of the Marquess of Queensberry in the most notorious libel trial in English history. Wilde died in penury and obscurity in 1900, yet his reputation today has never been greater. This engaging and innovative short book features a concise biographical essay on Wilde's meteoric career, followed by a Q&A interview based on Wilde's own words and Merlin Holland's unrivalled knowledge of his grandfather's life, work and puckish observations. This sparkling biography does full justice to Oscar Wilde's writerly genius and irrepressible humanity. It offers readers a renewed appreciation for a man who at times scandalised his era as much as he delights our own.

The definitive study of the rise and fall of Oscar Wilde after his death, written by Wilde’s only grandson Oscar Wilde died in November 1900, exiled in Paris and exhausted by scandal and prison life. The details of his life in the limelight are well known; what has regularly been ignored are the reverberations of the scandal for decades after his death: the myths and legends that have been created, the quarrels between his friends and enemies, the court cases... In After Oscar, Merlin Holland charts the extraordinary afterlife of the legendary writer, thinker, wit, and decadent, tracing the dramatic fluctuations in Wilde’s posthumous reputation over the past 125 years. There is the story of his family—his sons Cyril and Vyvyan concealing their identities and selling off the family history; the story of his friends and their court cases; the stories of biographical inventions, forgeries, and impersonators (including sightings of Wilde with messages from beyond the grave); and stories of the biography industry that now surrounds Wilde’s life, as well as his position as a gay icon.

Set in the decadent world of Victorian London, a beautiful young man called Dorian Gray becomes infatuated by the exquisite portrait that Basil Hallward has painted of him. He makes a Faustian pact that the picture will grow old while he remains forever young. Oscar Wilde's only novel caused an immediate scandal when it was first published in 1890 and its themes of youth and decay, innocence and corruption, art and reality are even more relevant to us in the 21st century than in the 19th. Adapted by Wilde's grandson Merlin Holland and John O'Connor, this delightfully witty version of Wilde's story incorporates material suppressed from the original manuscript.

Thursday 14 February 1895 was the triumphant opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest and the zenith of Wilde's career. Less than 100 days later, he found himself a common prisoner sentenced to two years hard labour. So what happened during the trials and what did Wilde say? Was he persecuted or the author of his own downfall? Using the actual words spoken in court, we can feel what it was like to be in the company of a flawed genius - as this less than ideal husband was suddenly reduced to a man of no importance.

Oscar Wilde had one of literary history's mostexplosive love affairs with Lord Alfred "Bosie"Douglas. In 1895, Bosie's father, the Marquessof Queensberry, delivered a note to the Albemarle Clubaddressed to "Oscar Wilde posing as sodomite." WithBosie's encouragement, Wilde sued the Marquess forlibel. He not only lost but he was tried twice for "grossindecency" and sent to prison with two years' hard labor.With this publication of the uncensored trial transcripts, readers can for the first time in more than a century hearWilde at his most articulate and brilliant. The Real Trialof Oscar Wilde documents an alarmingly swift fall fromgrace; it is also a supremely moving testament to the rightto live, work, and love as one's heart dictates.