|a In this long-awaited biography, Wilde the legendary Victorian-brilliant writer and conversationalist, reckless flouter of social and sexual conventions-is brought to life. Wilde - Exaltations - Disciple to master - The age of Dorian - Hellenizing Paris - A good woman, and others - A late victorian love affair - Sailing into the wind - Disgrace - 'I am the prosecutorin this case' - Doom deferred - Pentonville, Wandsworth, and Reading - Escape from Reading - Exile - Prisoner at large - The leftover years. |a Beginnings - Toil of growing up - Wilde at Oxford - Rome and Greece - An incomplete aesthete - Advances - Setting sail - Declaring his genius - Indoctrinating America - Countering the renaissance - Two kinds of stage - Mr. |a Includes bibliographical references (pages 623-624) and index.

|a xvii, 680 pages 32 unnumbered pages of plates : |b illustrations, portraits |c 25 cm |a New York : |b Knopf : |b Distributed by Random House, |c 1988. |a DLC |b eng |c DLC |d FIL |d MUQ |d UV$ |d BTCTA |d YDXCP |d SINLB |d EDX |d TXAPL |d CTN |d GEBAY |d GDC |d EUM |d OCLCO |d YBM |d OCLCF |d OCLCO |d OCLCQ |d DEBBG |d OCLCO |d OCL |d OCLCO |d CSO |d OCLCO |d OCL |d OCLCA |d ALSOM |d NLC |d OCLCA The tragic end of Wilde's life leaves the reader with a sense of compassion and grief for the protagonist. After his period of success and daring, the fatal love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas is followed by exposure, imprisonment, a few wretched years abroad and death in exile. This critical account of Wilde's entire oeuvre shows him as the proponent of a radical new aesthetic who was perilously at odds with Victorian society. The London of the Nineties, of Whistler and the Pre-Raphaelites, Lillie Langtry and the Prince of Wales, is evoked alongside Paris of the 'belle époque' and the Greece, Italy and North Africa of Wilde's travels.

The saga of his 1882 American tour is recounted with a wealth of new details also his later impact on the bastions of the French literary establishment. He presents Wilde's Irish background, the actresses to whom he paid court, his unfortunate wife and lovers, his clothes, coiffures, and the decor of his rooms. The author depicts Wilde's comet-like ascent on the Victorian scene and his equally dramatic sudden eclipse. More astute and forbearing, yet more fallible than legend has allowed, Wilde is given here the dimensions of a modern hero. In this long-awaited biography, Wilde the legendary Victorian-brilliant writer and conversationalist, reckless flouter of social and sexual conventions-is brought to life.

Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann