The Lord of Language

Memoirs

Oscar Wilde and Myself

by Lord Alfred DOUGLAS (1870 - 1945)

The first memoir by the poet Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas was written 14 years after the death of Oscar Wilde and in the aftermath of Douglas's failed prosecution of Arthur Ransome for libel. Ransome, in his "Oscar Wilde, a Critical Study," had quoted from the expurgated portions of Wilde's prison letter to Douglas, "De Profundis", which was highly critical of his former friend and lover. Having failed to convince a jury that he had been libelled, Douglas appealed instead to posterity by writing his memoir. In "Oscar Wilde and Myself" Douglas refutes Wilde's version of the events that led to his (Wilde's) imprisonment and takes swipes at Ransome, Wilde's friend Robert Ross, other biographers of Wilde, and Wilde's overzealous imitators. He also critiques Wilde's writing and character and concludes that the Irish playwright will soon be forgotten. (Rob Marland)

Listen next episodes of Oscar Wilde and Myself:
A Challenge to Mr. Ross , Crosland and ''The First Stone'' , Fifteen Years of Persecution , For Posterity , Hard Labour and After , Literature and Vice , Lord Queensberry Intervenes , My Actions for Libel , My Letters to Labouchere , My Letters to Wilde , Naples and Paris , Our Mutual Friends , Ransome’s ''Critical Study'' , The Article in the ''Revue Blanche'' , The ''Ballad of Reading Gaol'' , The British Museum and ''De Profundis'' , ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'' , The Plays and Prose Works , The Smaller Fry , The Truth about ''De Profundis'' , The Wilde Trials , To Be Done with It All , Wilde in Russia, France and Germany , Wilde’s Poetry