Overview

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 The book draws of a vast range of sources, many of them previously unpublished, and includes startling new material like the statements made to the police by the male prostitutes and blackmailers ranged against Oscar Wilde at his trial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

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9780099415459

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Reviews

A sensational new biography. <br>-- Bent <br> A bustling revealing and downright moving portrayal of the troubled genius. <br>-- Attitude <br>.,. a bold book. <br>-- Guardian

Intriguing and entertaining...McKenna makes an impassioned case for re-gaying Wilde The Times 20040715 A groundbreaking new biography of our greatest queer martyr Observer 20040715 It cannot be recommended too highly. Extraordinary, intensely passionate and quite beautiful Manchester Evening News 20040715 This is by far and away the best biography of Oscar Wilde to date John McRae, Professor of Literature 20040715 A bold book The Guardian

Intriguing and entertaining...McKenna makes an impassioned case for re-gaying Wilde * The Times * A groundbreaking new biography of our greatest queer martyr * Observer * It cannot be recommended too highly. Extraordinary, intensely passionate and quite beautiful * Manchester Evening News * This is by far and away the best biography of Oscar Wilde to date * John McRae, Professor of Literature * A bold book * The Guardian *

A tedious slog through the English author's sexual romps at the expense of his literary achievements. Wilde's secret life isn't exactly secret anymore, but British journalist McKenna aims to chronicle, in salacious detail, his relations with every boy from the time he arrived at Oxford's Magdalen College in 1874 through his imprisonment for gross indecency in 1895 and beyond. While reading classics at Oxford, the talented Irish poet was conflicted about his sexuality. His biographer charts Wilde's growing enchantment with Greek love in the form of flirtations with choirboys, artist Frank Miles and his sodomite circle, and many others. His reading of and friendship with Walter Pater, who urged followers to grasp at any exquisite passion, helped convert Wilde to the Aesthetic Movement and the more cultivated taste of loving men. He also, however, attracted women, and his marriage seems to have been instigated by genuine feelings of love and protectiveness toward young Constance Lloyd, as well as the desire for some kind of stability to offset his erratic and dangerous cruising, blackmail by rent boys, and police raids of pick-up places. Becoming a father did not dissuade Wilde from playing with fire ; he proclaimed in his letters a daring manifesto of amorality and wrote to one young lover, I myself would sacrifice everything for a new experience. The dizzying parade of transient bedfellows ended only when he met the love of his life, young Lord Alfred Douglas ( Bosie ), whose outraged father, the Marquis of Queensberry, eventually goaded Wilde into a libel suit and brought on his ruin. McKenna treats Wilde's work secondhand and only as autobiographical prefigurations of his homoerotic double life. In this author's hands, reading Wilde is reduced to a hunt for clues to his homosexuality; it's as titillating but trivial as finding indiscreetly inscribed cigarette cases given to young men. Exhaustively documented, but ultimately reductive and incomplete. (Kirkus Reviews)

To London Society, at the end of the 19th century, there was no greater playwright than Oscar Wilde. On 14th February 1895 The Importance of Being Earnest, possibly his most famous play, opened to a rapturous reception, and Oscar, recently returned from Algiers was the toast of the town. Society knew Wilde as a happily married man, the father of two boys, although it was also noticed that he had a predilection of the company of young men. His preferred companion was Lord Alfred Douglas, commonly known as Bosie. By May 1895, Society had shunned Wilde, shocked and horrified at what had been revealed in a scandalous court and Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labour because he refused to 'repudiate his love for Bosie and his love for men.' What Society found acceptable behind closed doors was not acceptable in the open. How and why this change of fortune happened has been explained in many previous biographies of Wilde. But in The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, Neil McKenna goes beyond the usual level of biography to argue that Wilde was driven creatively by his desires for sex with young men. He discusses for the first time the connection between the works and the sexual life of Wilde. This is not an easy read; some people may find the descriptions of homosexual activity off-putting. But there is no doubt that with unprecedented access to many papers, letters and photographs in the possession of Merlin Holland, Wilde's grandson, many of them previously unpublished, McKenna has written a compelling, if somewhat unsettling, account of the life of Oscar Wilde. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

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.

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