Matthew Sturgis.
matthew sturgis
oscar: a life (2018)
Oscar Wilde (born 1854) was one of the most popular playwrights in England during the 1880s. He was born in Dublin, the son of Anglo-Irish intellectuals. He attended Trinity College Dublin, then Magdalen College, Oxford, where he obtained a first class degree in Classics. He went on to enjoy great success in his plays, including An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest.
His life fell from celebrity to notoriety when he was convicted of homosexuality, which was then illegal. He was sentenced to two years hard labour, which he served from 1895 to 1897. The conviction arose after Wilde sued the 9th Marquess of Queensberry, who was the father of Wilde’s lover Lord Alfred Douglas. On the day of his release from prison he took the overnight ferry to France and never returned to England or Ireland. He died at the age of 46 in 1900.
The Times Literary Supplement wrote of this biography: 'The Book of the Year, perhaps of the decade'. The Sunday Times wrote of the book: 'Page-turning... Vivid and desperately moving. However much you think you know Wilde, this book will absorb and entertain you'.
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Matthew Sturgis (born 1960) is a British journalist and author who was educated at the University of Oxford. He has worked for the Sunday Telegraph and The Independent. He has also drawn cartoons for the Oldie and the Daily Mail. In addtion to his Wilde biography e has published biographies on the artists Aubrey Beardsley and Walter Sickert.
