The Secret Life Of Oscar Wilde

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 troubled, and more triumphant than any of his contemporaries ever knew or suspected. 'The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde' charts fully for the first time the rich and complex emotional and erotic life of Oscar Wilde from his youthful struggles against his homosexuality and his troubled marriage, to his acceptance and celebration of his love for young men. Neil McKenna argues compellingly and convincingly that Oscar Wilde was driven personally and creatively by his powerful homosexual desires and his life and work can only be understood fully in terms of his sexuality. The book draws on a very wide range of sources, much of it unpublished, and includes material like the statements made by the witnesses ranged against Wilde at his trial which have been lost for over a hundred years. Dazzingly written in the tradition of the great biographies, Neil McKenna meticulously and brilliantly reconstructs Oscar Wilde's emotional and sexual life, painting an anstonishingly frank and vivid portrait of a troubled genius who chose to martyr himself for the c