Listed below are the people Oscar Wilde repeatedly mentions in his letters, including those he corresponded with. For more detail about the events leading up to his imprisonment, and the individuals involved, see the Introduction. Please note that some individuals are listed twice, i.e. once by their given name and once by their nickname.
More Adey: (1858–1942), translator, editor and gallery-owner; he attempted to petition the Home Secretary for Wilde’s early release.
Bosie: Nickname of Lord Alfred Douglas.
Arthur Clifton: Arthur Bellamy Clifton (1862–1932), a solicitor who became an art dealer; he worked with Robert Ross and More Adey.
Lord Alfred Douglas: (1870–1945), third son of the Marquess of Queensberry; author, poet and translator. He met and began an affair with Wilde in 1891.
Francis Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig: (1867–94), eldest son of the Marquess of Queensberry, brother of Lord Alfred Douglas. He served as private secretary to the Liberal politician Lord Rosebery and died in a shooting accident.
Fleur-de-Lys: One of Wilde’s nicknames for Lord Alfred Douglas.
Governor: Major J. O. Nelson.
Mr Hargrove: Messrs Hargrove & Co. were the solicitors of Constance Wilde’s family, the Lloyds.
Frank Harris: (1856–1931), author, editor and publisher; a friend of Wilde and other well-known figures of the day.
Mr Holman: Martin Holman of the solicitors Parker, Garrett & Holman.
Arthur Humphreys: Arthur Humphreys (1865–1946), bookseller, author and publisher.
Charles Humphreys: Solicitor who represented Wilde in his case against the Marquess of Queensberry.
Ada Leverson: (1862–1933), a journalist and novelist; she met Wilde, it seems, in 1892 and became one of his closest friends. Wilde normally addressed her as ‘Sphinx’.
Ernest Leverson: (1850–1922), wealthy businessman and husband of Ada Leverson.
Sir George Lewis: (1833–1911), lawyer who advised the Marquess of Queensberry at the start of the libel action. As a close friend of Wilde, and not wishing to act against him, he then passed the brief on to Charles Russell.
Aurélien-François-Marie Lugné-Poë: (1869–1940), French actor-manager, produced Wilde’s Salomé on 11 February 1896, with Lina Munte in the title role.
Thomas Martin: A native of Belfast, Martin came to Reading as a warder seven weeks before Wilde’s release. He was kind to Wilde and constantly broke the regulations to bring him extra food as well as newspapers.
Stuart Merrill: (1863–1915), American poet living in Paris who mostly wrote in French; just as More Adey had done in Britain, he attempted to get notable figures in France to sign a petition for Wilde’s release. He is buried where he wished: diagonally opposite Wilde’s tomb in Père-Lachaise.
Major James Osmond Nelson: (1859–1914), was governor of Reading Gaol from July 1896. Under his governorship, conditions at the prison began to improve and Wilde was allowed to write throughout the day.
Walter Pater: (1839–94), novelist, essayist and critic whose work is frequently mentioned by Wilde.
Marquess of Queensberry: John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry (1844–1900), Scottish nobleman known for his strong atheism and love of sport. Angered by the relationship between Wilde and his son Lord Alfred Douglas, he provoked Wilde into suing him for criminal libel.
Alexander (‘Aleck’) Galt Ross: (1860–1927), brother of Robert, and a co-founder of the Society of Authors.
Robert (‘Robbie’) Ross: (1869–1918), literary journalist and art critic, Wilde’s friend and literary executor. He published De Profundis (see note 1 on p. 242).
Adela Schuster: Daughter of a wealthy Frankfurt banker; one of Wilde’s closest friends and a generous benefactress, often referred to as ‘the Lady of Wimbledon’ in the letters.
R. (Robert) H. Sherard: (1861–1943), journalist and friend of Wilde, later his first biographer.
Percy Sholto: Lord Douglas of Hawick (1868–1920), Lord Alfred Douglas’s elder brother. He succeeded his father as 10th Marquess of Queensberry in 1900.
The Sphinx: Ada Leverson.
Reginald (‘Reggie’) Turner: (1869–1938), journalist, novelist and wit.
Constance Wilde (later ‘Holland’): (1858–98), born Constance Lloyd, she married Wilde in 1884. While he was in prison, she gained custody of their two sons and changed her name and theirs to Holland, a family name, to distance them from the scandal.
Cyril Wilde (later ‘Holland’): (1885–1915), Wilde’s elder son.
Vyvyan Wilde (later ‘Holland’): (1886–1967), Wilde’s younger son.
William (‘Willie’) Wilde: (1852–99), Wilde’s older brother; journalist and poet.
Lady of Wimbledon: Adela Schuster.
1 A letter from Alfred Douglas to his brother Percy, dated 11 March, mentions that he and Oscar are leaving for Monte Carlo the next day. In The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, ed. Merlin Holland and Rupert Hart-Davis (London: Fourth Estate, 2000), the date is given as ‘Circa 13 March 1895’.
2 fight with panthers: On 1 March, Wilde obtained a warrant for the arrest of the Marquess of Queensberry, who was charged with criminal libel. Wilde and Queensberry’s son, Lord Alfred Douglas, arrived in Monte Carlo on 14 March.
3 To Constance Wilde / [? 5 April 1895]: This letter, which is in an envelope addressed to Mrs Oscar Wilde, 16 Tite Street, was delivered by hand. It cannot be dated with confidence, but the morning of the last day of the Queensberry trial, when Wilde knew that he could not win, seems a likely time.
4 To the Editor of the Evening News / 5 April 1895: On the morning of this day, the prosecution was forced to withdraw and Queensberry was acquitted. This letter, written on two envelopes from the Holborn Viaduct Hotel, is in Robert Ross’s handwriting and signed by Wilde.
5 Rather than put him in so painful a position … my prosecuting Lord Queensberry: Douglas maintained all his life that, had he been allowed to give evidence, he would have discredited his father sufficiently to allow Wilde to win. It is very unlikely that he could have done this.
6 George Alexander, and Waller: George Alexander (1858–1918), actor and theatre manager. His tenancy of St James’s Theatre where The Importance of Being Earnest was produced lasted from 1891 until his death. ‘Waller’ is the actor-manager Lewis Waller (1860–1915).
7 give bail: On 6 April 1895 Wilde was charged with offences under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885. Refused bail, he was imprisoned at Holloway. On 1 May the jury disagreed. He was released on bail 7 May and a new trial began on 20 May. On 25 May he was found guilty and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour. The first six months were spent in Pentonville and Wandsworth prisons, the rest at Reading.
8 Why did the Sibyl say fair things: A reference to Mrs Robinson, a fashionable fortune-teller.
9 To an Unidentified Correspondent: Perhaps Adela Schuster, who had given Wilde £1,000, or the actress Mrs Bernard Beere (1856–1915).
10 someone whose name is Love … comfort him: Lord Alfred Douglas.
11 Sarah: Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923), celebrated French actress for whom Wilde wrote Salomé (1891). She was to appear in the title role in London in 1892 but rehearsals were cancelled by the Lord Chamberlain on the grounds that it was illegal to represent biblical characters on stage, and production of the play – in Paris, under the direction of Aurélien Lugné-Poë – did not go ahead until 1896.
12 To Lord Alfred Douglas / Monday Evening [29 April 1895]: In August 1895 Douglas wrote a passionate defence of Wilde for an article written in French for Mercure de France but, at Wilde’s insistence, it was not published. Douglas included three letters from Wilde (this and two from May 1895, referred to in notes 18 and 21, on p. 237), the originals of which he destroyed but which have been translated back into English.
13 Dear —: Name omitted by Douglas.
14 If I do not get bail today … send me some books: He didn’t. It was not until 7 May that bail was granted. The sureties were the Rev. Stewart Headlam (see note 47, p. 261), a socialist clergyman, and Alfred Douglas’s elder brother, Percy. As a result, Percy and his father came to blows publicly in Piccadilly on 21 May.
15 Now that he: Lord Alfred Douglas.
16 Jonquil: One of Wilde’s nicknames for Lord Alfred Douglas – see also note 33 on p. 245.
17 [? 146 Oakley Street]: When Wilde was released on bail, no hotel would accept him; he stayed with his mother at 146 Oakley Street.
18 To Lord Alfred Douglas / [May 1895]: See note 12 on p. 236.
19 [? 2 Courtfield Gardens]: After a few days, the Leversons took Wilde into their house at 2 Courtfield Gardens, where he stayed until his conviction on 25 May.
20 more sacred, more beautiful …: Wilde’s ellipsis.
21 To Lord Alfred Douglas / [20 May 1895]: See note 12 on p. 236. ‘Taylor’, mentioned in the second sentence of this letter, was Oscar Wilde’s co-defendant, Alfred Taylor, believed to have introduced Wilde to several young men. Refusing to give evidence against him, Taylor was tried with Wilde and, like him, convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years’ hard labour.
22 [HM Prison, Reading]: Wilde was moved from Pentonville to Wandsworth on 4 July 1895 and from there to Reading on 21 November. To begin with, he was allowed to write only one letter every three months. (For more detail on this, see the Introduction, p. xxv.)
23 purchasing my life-interest: A life interest in his marriage settlement.
24 She was gentle … when she came to see me: Lady Wilde died on 3 February 1896 and Constance travelled specially from Genoa to Reading to break the news to him. Her visit was on 19 February. It was their last meeting.
25 his kindness was great in getting them sent: On 12 June 1895, Richard Burton Haldane MP (1856–1928), a member of the Gladstone Committee investigating prisons, visited Wilde in Pentonville. He persuaded the Home Secretary to transfer Wilde to Wandsworth and then to Reading. He also obtained books for him. In January 1896, More Adey arranged with the Home Office to send more books, including the Corpus Poetarum Latinorum and Poetae Scenici Graeci.
26 the lady who lives at Wimbledon: Adela Schuster, frequently referred to in Wilde’s letters as ‘the Lady of Wimbledon’.
27 Jones’s play and Forbes-Robertson’s management: Henry Arthur Jones (1851–1929), English dramatist. Johnston Forbes-Robertson (1853–1937), English actor-manager, regarded as one of the finest actors of his day.
28 Lemaître, Bauër, and Sarcey: Jules François Élie Lemaître (1854– 1914), Henri Bauër (1851–1915) and Francisque Sarcey (1827– 99) were three of the leading French dramatic critics.
29 please write to Henri Bauër … his writing nicely: On 3 June 1895, Bauër published an article in the Echo de Paris attacking the barbarity of Wilde’s sentence.
30 It was sweet of you to come and see me: Ross and Ernest Leverson visited Wilde on 25 February 1896.
31 Ask Ernest in whose name the burial-ground of my mother was taken: Lady Wilde was buried in an unmarked grave in Kensal Green cemetery. A memorial stone was placed there on the centenary of her death in 1996.
32 [30 May 1896]: Sherard and Ross visited Wilde, probably on 29 May 1896.
33 The proposal is revolting and grotesque: When Douglas’s Poems was published at the end of 1896, it contained no dedication.
34 Let me know why Irving leaves Lyceum etc.: Henry Irving (1838–1905), English actor-manager, ended his Lyceum season on 27 July 1895 and toured America for ten months. He reappeared at the Lyceum in Cymbeline on 22 September 1896.
35 who did Stevenson criticise severely in his letters: Robert Louis Stevenson died in Samoa on 3 December 1894; his Vailima Letters, edited by their recipient Sidney Colvin, was published on 2 November 1895.
36 He has ruined my life – that should content him: Douglas, devastated by this comment, replied to Ross on 4 June 1896. An extract from this letter was printed in the Daily Telegraph of 25 November 1921 in connection with one of Douglas’s many libel actions.
37 Carlos Blacker and Newcastle: Carlos Blacker (1859–1928), linguist, friend of Oscar and Constance Wilde. ‘The Happy Prince’ (published in The Happy Prince and Other Tales, 1888) was dedicated to him. In 1890 he became involved in a disastrous business venture, leading him to quarrel with the Duke of Newcastle, who had acted as surety. In revenge, the duke falsely accused Blacker of cheating at cards. Wilde attempted to bring about a reconciliation between the two men, although this did not take place until 1900.
38 To the Home Secretary: This was written on an official form. The Home Secretary at the time was Sir Matthew White Ridley, Bart (1842–1904). Wilde, by this stage, had begun to suffer from the painful ear infection which would kill him four years later.
39 Lombroso and Nordau: Cesare Lambroso (1836–1909) was an Italian criminologist; Max Simon Nordau (1849–1923) was a German author and sociologist.
40 Sir William Dalby: William Bartlett Dalby (1840–1918), knighted in 1886.
41 The Petition of the above-named prisoner humbly sheweth … Oscar Wilde: The petition was forwarded to the Home Office together with a short medical report from the prison doctor saying that Wilde had put on weight in prison and showed no signs of insanity. It was recommended that Wilde should have writing materials in his cell and a larger supply of books.
42 To the Home Secretary: See note 38 on p. 238.
43 Solicitors’ Room … in presence of a warder: On 6 July the Home Office ruled that the interview might take place in the Solicitors’ Room, the length of the interview being left to the governor’s discretion.
44 [26 August 1896]: Dated by a prison official.
45 George Ives: George Cecil Ives (1867–1950), German-English poet, writer and penal reformer, published A Book of Chains anonymously in 1897, which contained poems about Wilde in prison.
46 More Adey to Oscar Wilde: The original of this letter is lost, but this draft of part of it in Adey’s hand has survived.
47 a beautiful play … rather in the style of Frou-frou: In the fourth act of Froufrou (1869) by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, the heroine’s husband and lover fight a duel off stage, in which the lover is mortally wounded.
48 I remember the Moving Sphere story … the Problem and the Lunatic: Neither story was written down by Wilde. The first story and its possible sources is discussed by John Stokes in Oscar Wilde: Myths, Miracles, and Imitations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Frank Harris adapted it and published it as ‘The Irony of Chance (after O.W.)’ in his Unpath’d Waters (1913).
49 Lady Brooke [the Ranee of Sarawak]: Margaret, Lady Brooke (1849–1936), queen-consort of the White Rajah of Sarawak, Charles Anthony Johnson Brooke. Wilde dedicated his story ‘The Young King’ (published in A House of Pomegranates, 1891) to her. She became a close confidante of Constance Wilde’s in exile.
50 Bobbie: Robert Ross.
51 I thank you very much for writing to the Home Secretary: More Adey’s petition to the Home Secretary (which is believed to have been partly drafted by George Bernard Shaw) urging a remission of Wilde’s sentence, though printed and ready, was never sent, since almost immediately Adey received a letter from the Home Office saying that the Home Secretary ‘has come to the conclusion that no grounds, medical or other, exist which would justify him in advising any mitigation of the sentence’.
52 I was allowed to become insolvent when there was no reason: Wilde was taken from prison for his public examination in the Bankruptcy Court on 24 September 1895 and again on 12 November. The Labour Leader on 16 November reported: ‘They have cut his hair in a shocking way and parted it down the side and he wears a short, scrubby, unkempt beard.’
53 I would feel quite safe if Arthur … it would be a great thing: On 8 October 1895, Arthur Clifton wrote to Carlos Blacker: ‘I was very much shocked at Oscar’s appearance, though scarcely surprised. Fortunately he had his ordinary clothes on: his hair was rather long and he looked dreadfully thin. You can imagine how painful it was to meet him: and he was very much upset and cried a good deal: he seemed quite broken-hearted and kept on describing his punishment as savage.’
54 the Florentine Tragedy: A fragment of a play that was never completed. The German translation of the text was made into an opera by the Austrian composer Alexander Zemlinsky, first performed in 1917.
55 I am so glad Pierre Louÿs has made a great name for himself: Pierre Louÿs (1870–1925), French poet and writer, whose novel Aphrodite (1896), a depiction of courtesan life in ancient Alexandria, was a phenomenal success in France.
56 In what a mire of madness I walked! …: All the ellipses in this letter are Wilde’s.
57 Poor Aubrey: Aubrey Beardsley (1872–98), English illustrator and artist; a leading figure in the Aesthetic Movement, he contributed to the development of Art Nouveau. At this point, he had already begun to suffer from the terminal effects of his childhood consumption which would kill him on 16 March 1898.
58 To the Home Secretary: See note 38 on p. 238. This petition, like its predecessor (see note 41 on p. 239), was forwarded to the Home Office with a medical report. It was rejected almost immediately.
59 To Robert Ross: Attached to this letter is a note in Ross’s hand: ‘The front sheet of this letter which dealt with business matters was forwarded to Hansell or Humphreys [lawyers] and was not returned to me.’
60 There is a thorn … that I must pluck out of my flesh in this letter: 2 Corinthians 12: 7.
61 terrible thoughts that gnaw me …: All the ellipses in this letter are Wilde’s.
62 being no ‘winged living thing’, as Plato feigned it: Phaedrus 246A–249B.
63 I believe that my letter … cut out by a pair of scissors: See letter of Saturday 30 May 1896 (p. 14).
64 Charley Parker: One of the young men who gave evidence at Wilde’s trials.
65 Infant Samuel … Malebolge: The ‘Infant Samuel’ refers to how Samuel was called by God as a child (1 Samuel 3). The reference here may also recall the famous painting from 1776 of the same subject by Sir Joshua Reynolds. ‘Malebolge’ is the eighth circle of Dante’s Inferno.
66 Gilles de Retz and the Marquis de Sade: Gilles de Laval, Sire de Retz or Raiz (1404–40), the comrade-in-arms of Joan of Arc, turned to debauchery, devil-worship and child murder, for which he was finally executed. The Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), author of Justine (1791) and other novels of cruelty, was sentenced to death for various offences but escaped the scaffold and died in a lunatic asylum.
67 the wonderful story of the little restaurant with the strange dish of meat served to the silent clients: Max Meyerfeld, in his annotations to Letzte Briefe (Berlin: 1925, see p. 164) suggests that this is a reference to a story told by Robert Ross about an archbishop who relishes a dinner at a Wardour Street restaurant, only to discover that it was made of human flesh.
68 my wife’s offer: Constance Wilde’s advisers wished her to buy Wilde’s contingent life interest in her marriage settlement from the official receiver.
69 (2) It would be a great thing for me to see you (or Arthur Clifton) some time next month, and at intervals, on my affairs. I hope permission will be granted:
70 Stevenson’s memoirs etc.: There was no such book. Wilde must have confused it with Stevenson’s Vailima Letters (see note 35 on p. 238).
71 Ollendorff: Heinrich Gottfried Ollendorff (d. 1865) produced ‘a new method of learning to read, write and speak a language in six months’.
72 Arthur: Wilde accidentally wrote ‘Charles’, with his now-despised solicitor in mind.
73 I wait them eagerly: Humphreys had sent Wilde a present of books.
74 the French translator of my novel should be considered: In the spring of 1895, Albert Savine published a French translation of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Eugène Tardieu and Georges Maurevert. It went through four editions in 1895.
75 The mischief of Lady Windermere’s Fan … no use bothering: Presumably a reference to the French translation rights, although in a letter of June 1897 to William Rothenstein (see note 45 on p. 247) Wilde refers to a possible translation of the play.
76 an old family name on her side: Constance Wilde changed her, Cyril and Vyvyan’s last name to Holland.
77 October year last: Actually 21 September.
78 She also on the death of my mother … to me here in person: On 19 February 1896. She travelled from Genoa.
79 Charles Wyndham: The actor-manager Charles Wyndham (1837–1919) originally owned the rights to The Importance of Being Earnest, which he gave to George Alexander when Alexander’s production of Henry James’s Guy Domville failed and he was in need of a new production. One of the conditions, it seems, was that Wyndham should have Wilde’s next play.
80 Miss Napier … Mrs Napier: Mary Eliza Napier (known as Eliza) was Constance Wilde’s first cousin. After Constance’s death she became to some extent a foster-mother to Wilde’s sons. Mrs Napier (Louisa Mary Napier, mother of Eliza) did lend Constance £100.
81 I am still at work at the letter: For this letter, known as De Profundis, see pp. 45–161.
82 Mr Grain: John Peter Grain (1839–1916), barrister, was Charles Humphreys’s brother-in-law. He appeared as counsel for Alfred Taylor in both Wilde’s trials and for Wilde in the Bankruptcy Court.
83 He need not have been …: Wilde’s ellipsis.
84 People, as somebody in one of Ibsen’s plays says, don’t do these things: The last line of Hedda Gabler (1890), spoken by Judge Brack after Hedda’s suicide.
85 from the bottom of page one: i.e. from ‘As regards the Queens-berry family …’, paragraph three of this letter.
86 Mr Stoker: Presumably a partner in Messrs Stoker and Hansell, solicitors.
87 For the list of books … la Sainte Bible: On 10 March 1897 a list of books was submitted to the prison governor, who approved all of them, except the periodical the Nineteenth Century, which he thought unsuitable. The other books included volumes by Dante, Goldoni, D.G. Rossetti, Stevenson, Meredith and Hardy as well as a French Bible and a German grammar.
1 To Lord Alfred Douglas: This long letter is known as De Profundis. On 2 April 1897, the prison governor wrote to the Prison Commission to ask whether this letter, ‘written during the last three or four months’, might be sent out. He informed them that there were twenty folio sheets, each of four pages. ‘Each sheet,’ he wrote, ‘was carefully numbered before being issued and withdrawn each evening and placed before me in the morning with the usual papers.’ This is unlikely; it is more probable that the governor allowed Wilde greater freedom to revise and correct. On 6 April the Commission wrote to say that sending the letter was impossible; instead it could be kept and handed to the prisoner on his release. This was done on 19 May and Wilde, in turn, handed it to Robert Ross at Dieppe when he landed there the next morning. Ross had two typed copies made. According to him, he sent Douglas one of these copies. In 1905 Ross published extracts, as De Profundis (a title he chose – see note 43 on p. xxxii), amounting to less than half the letter, and a slightly fuller version in 1908. Neither of these contained any reference to Douglas. In 1909 Ross presented the original copy to the British Museum on condition that no one be allowed to see it for fifty years. The second typescript, kept by Ross and eventually bequeathed by him to Vyvyan Holland, supplied the ‘first complete and accurate version’ which Holland published, again as De Profundis, in 1949. There were, however, considerable differences between the manuscript and the typed copy. Some of these were caused by errors in the typing and dictating; others were caused by Ross, who, for example, removed more than a thousand words, almost all of them fiercely critical of Douglas and his father. Wilde’s letter is printed here exactly as he wrote it, except that it has been divided up into more paragraphs than his ration of paper allowed him.
2 without ever having received a single line from you … except such as gave me pain: Wilde’s indictments of Douglas in this letter need to be approached with caution. Some of them are both inaccurate and unfair.
3 in my letter to Robbie: See letter of 30 May 1896 (p. 14).
4 such an artist as I am: Wilde originally wrote ‘was’.
5 John Hare: (1844–1921), actor and manager of the Garrick Theatre 1889–95.
6 John Gray: (1866–1934), poet of the Aesthetic Movement often suggested to be the inspiration for Dorian Gray.
7 I had succeeded in inducing your mother to send you out of England: Wilde wrote to Lady Queensberry on 8 November 1893.
8 the Florentine Tragedy and La Sainte Courtisane: Like The Florentine Tragedy (see note 54 on p. 240), La Sainte Courtisane is an unfinished play, begun by Wilde in 1894.
9 ‘Plain living and high thinking’: William Wordsworth’s sonnet ‘Written in London, September 1802’.
10 Out of my dinner with Robbie came the first and best of all my dialogues: Almost certainly Wilde’s essay ‘The Decay of Lying’ (published with other essays in Intentions, 1891), in which two characters, Vivian and Cyril, debate the values of Aestheticism.
11 τερπνòν κακϖν: Euripides, Hippolytus 384; literally, ‘delightful wickedness’.
12 you at that time … elements or its expression: In March 1893, Wilde wrote to Douglas: ‘Bosie – you must not make scenes with me – they kill me – they wreck the loveliness of life – I cannot see you, so Greek and gracious, distorted by passion …’
13 ‘the only tyranny that lasts’: A Woman of No Importance, Act 3.
14 Pater says that ‘Failure is to form habits’: In the ‘Conclusion’ to Walter Pater’s Studies in the History of the Renaissance (see note 79 on p. 249).
15 your place is with the Infant Samuel … Marquis de Sade: See notes 65 and 66 on pp. 241.
16 In the most wonderful of all his plays … all that he possesses: Aeschylus’s Agamemnon; the words quoted occur in lines 717–28.
17 my pointing out the schoolboy faults of your attempted translation of Salomé: It seems that Wilde insisted on changes in Douglas’s translation. The volume is dedicated to Douglas – it reads ‘To my friend Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas, the translator of my play’ – but Douglas’s name does not appear as the translator on the title page.
18 one of my own friends: Wilde originally wrote ‘Robbie’.
19 family: Wilde originally wrote ‘wife’.
20 candidissima anima: ‘purest [literally ‘whitest’] soul’.
21 try and get you connected with some Embassy abroad: When Douglas left Egypt in March 1894, he was appointed honorary attaché to the British ambassador at Constantinople, but did not take up the appointment.
22 bad line from which you come: The 7th Marquess of Queensberry (1818–58) died in a shooting accident. His youngest son, Lord James Edward Sholto Douglas (1855–91), cut his own throat in the Euston Hotel.
23 your father … that afternoon, through a letter addressed to you, began his first attack on me: This would have been circa 1 April 1894.
24 I was trying to finish my last play at Worthing by myself: Wilde wrote The Importance of Being Earnest in Worthing in August 1894.
25 the influenza, your second, if not third attack: On 6 October 1894, Wilde sent a telegram to Ada Leverson reporting the state of health of Lord Alfred Douglas: ‘Much better, temperature gone down, is to be allowed chicken to the sound of flutes at 7.30. Many thanks for kind enquiries.’
26 Wednesday was my birthday: In 1894 Wilde’s birthday (16 October) was a Tuesday, and Ross changed this sentence accordingly in the typescripts.
27 in a public restaurant: The Berkeley, in Piccadilly.
28 on the Friday: 19 October 1894.
29 the heir to the title … his gun lying discharged beside him: Viscount Drumlanrig was killed by the explosion of his gun on 18 October 1894 (see also note 39 on p. 246).
30 lacrimae rerum: Literally, ‘tears of things’ – Virgil, Aeneid 1: 462.
31 It is not of our vices only they make instruments to scourge us: Shakespeare, King Lear V. iii. 181–2: ‘The gods … of our pleasant vices / Make instruments to plague us.’
32 I reply by a letter of fantastic literary conceits: Letter written probably in January 1893. It began: ‘My Own Boy, Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it is a marvel that those rose-leaf lips of yours should have been made no less for music of song than for madness of kisses.’
33 I compare you to Hylas, or Hyacinth, Jonquil or Narcisse: In Greek mythology, Hylas, Hyacinth and Narcissus were young men all noted for their beauty. Narcissus and jonquil are both common names for flowering plants of the Narcissus genus, named after the flower that supposedly sprang up in the spot where the eponymous youth fell in a pool and drowned, so intently was he gazing at his own reflection.
34 the manager of the theatre where my work is being performed: Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853–1917), actor-manager. As manager of the Haymarket Theatre, he produced two of Wilde’s plays – A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband.
35 I sent him a page of paradoxes destined originally for the Saturday Review: Thirty-five aphorisms of Wilde’s were published in the first and only edition of the Chameleon, an Oxford undergraduate magazine published in December 1894. Much play was made with them at the trial and also with two other items in the magazine – a poem of Douglas’s called ‘Two Loves’ and an anonymous story called ‘The Priest and the Acolyte’, attributed to Wilde but in fact written by the magazine’s editor, John Francis Bloxam.
36 ‘the Love that dares not tell its name’: The last lines of Douglas’s poem ‘Two Loves’ are: ‘“I am true Love, I fill / The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.” Then sighing said the other, “Have thy will, / I am the Love that dare not speak its name.”’
37 on that fatal Friday: 1 March 1895.
38 some £700: This (or rather £677) was the amount of Queensberry’s taxed costs in Wilde’s unsuccessful action against him. The total of Wilde’s debts was £3,591 (see PRO b9–429), but Queensberry was the petitioning creditor whose action made Wilde a bankrupt.
39 Secretary for Foreign Affairs at Homburg: In 1893 Queensberry’s eldest son, Drumlanrig (see also note 29 on p. 245), was then private secretary to Lord Rosebery, Foreign Secretary in Gladstone’s last government. Queensberry, who began to quarrel with his son, followed Rosebery to Homburg, threatening to horsewhip him because he suspected his son of a homosexual relationship with the Foreign Secretary, and was only persuaded to desist by the Prince of Wales.
40 a foolish and vulgar telegram: This telegram (dated 2 April 1894) read: ‘what a funny little man you are.’
41 The faculty ‘by which, and by which alone … as in their ideal relations’: Quoting a passage from earlier in De Profundis (p. 74).
42 scies: ‘irritating things’.
43 a letter you had published in one of the halfpenny newspapers about me: In April 1895, when Wilde was awaiting trial, the Marquess of Queensberry replied to a letter in support of Wilde published in the Star. Lord Alfred Douglas, in turn, replied to his father.
44 you wrote other letters to other newspapers that they did not publish: In June 1895 Douglas also wrote to Henry Labouchère’s Truth and to T. W. Stead, editor of Review of Reviews (see also note 18 on p. 258).
45 my Monticelli: my Simeon Solomons: A picture by the French painter Adolphe Joseph Thomas Monticelli (1824–86) was sold in the Tite Street sale of Wilde’s goods to the artist William Rothenstein (1872–1945), who bought it for £8 and later sold it for Wilde’s benefit. Simeon Solomons (1840–1905) was an English painter and illustrator.
46 more summarily than even wretched perjured Atkins was: Frederick Atkins was at different times a billiard-marker and a bookmaker’s clerk. When he gave evidence for the Crown at Wilde’s first trial, he perjured himself so flagrantly that the judge described him in his summing up as ‘a most reckless, unreliable, unscrupulous, and untruthful witness’. Wilde, who admitted having taken Atkins on a trip to Paris with him, was acquitted of the charges brought in respect of this witness.
47 the arrow had pierced a King between the joints of the harness: 1 Kings 22: 34.
48 the entire chrysolite of the whole world: Shakespeare, Othello V. ii. 143–4: ‘If heaven would make me such another world / Of one entire and perfect chrysolite’.
49 I was greatly taken aback … stopped at once: See note 12 on p. 236.
50 feuilletoniste: Newspaper columnist.
51 I think they love not Art … glare or gloat: The closing lines of the octave of Wilde’s sonnet ‘On the Sale by Auction of Keats’ Love Letters’ (1886), although the printed version has ‘glare and gloat’ (Wilde was quoting from memory).
52 Lombroso: See note 39 on p. 239.
53 I am told that Henri Bauër had already done it extremely well: See note 29 on p. 238.
54 Infant Samuel … Gilles de Retz and the Marquis de Sade: See notes 65 and 66 on pp. 241.
55 the leper of mediaevalism, and the author of Justine … Sandford and Merton: The first two refer back to Gilles de Retz and the Marquis de Sade of four sentenced earlier (see previous note). The History of Sandford and Merton, an improving and immensely popular book for children by Thomas Day (1748–89), was originally published 1783–9.
56 I would readily consent to be ‘blackmailed by every renter in London’: What he actually wrote was: ‘I’d sooner be rented all day, than have you bitter, unjust, and horrid – horrid –’.
57 The faculty ‘by which, and by which alone … as in their ideal relations’: See note 41 on p. 246.
58 Suffering is one long moment: It was with this sentence that Robert Ross’s 1905 edition of De Profundis started (see note 1 on p. 243).
59 A week later: Wilde originally wrote ‘On the 13th of November’.
60 lord of language: Tennyson, ‘To Virgil’ (1882).
61 ‘Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda, e passa’: ‘Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass on’, Dante, Inferno 3: 51.
62 thin beaten-out leaf of tremulous gold … eye cannot see: A reference to the gold leaf used by bookbinders with which Wilde would undoubtedly have been familiar. The slightest, almost imperceptible disturbance in the air would cause it to fly off the cutting cushion on which it was being prepared for tooling on the book.
63 why I wrote … such scorn and contempt of you: Referring to his letter of 30 May 1896 (see p. 14).
64 the soul of Branca d’Oria in Dante: Inferno 33: 135–47.
65 Edwin Levy: It seems possible that Levy was some kind of moneylender or private inquiry agent.
66 causerie intime: Intimate chat.
67 Alfred Austin: (1835–1913), succeeded Tennyson as Poet Laureate in 1896.
68 Street: George Slythe Street (1867–1936), journalist and author of The Autobiography of a Boy (1894) and other books.
69 Mrs Meynell had been pronounced to be the new Sibyl of Style: In December 1895, Coventry Patmore (1823–96) had written to the Saturday Review, advocating the claims of the popular columnist and poet Alice Meynell (1847–1922) to the vacant Laureateship.
70 When I wrote … the feet of clay that made the gold of the image precious: A reference to The Picture of Dorian Gray, chapter 15. This chapter first appeared in the book edition in April 1891.
71 my two children are taken from me by legal procedure: Constance Wilde’s summons was heard on 12 February 1897. The resulting order gave her custody of the children, with herself and Adrian Hope (1858–1904) as the guardians. Hope, who was Secretary to the Hospital for Sick Children from 1888, continued as guardian after Constance’s death, but, according to Vyvyan Holland, they hardly ever saw him.
72 To revisit the glimpses of the moon: Shakespeare, Hamlet I. iv. 53: ‘Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon’.
73 It was simply that ‘one really fatal defect … lack of imagination’: Referring to two earlier passages in De Profundis (see pp. 74 and 77).
74 I was no longer the Captain of my Soul: An echo of W. E. Henley’s poem ‘Invictus’ (1875).
75 Suffering … And has the nature of Infinity: Wordsworth, The Borderers (written 1795–7; published 1842), Act 3; ‘has’ in the second line should be ‘shares’.
76 Vita Nuova: The New Life (1295), Dante’s treatise on the art of poetry with a commentary on the emotions – his unrequited love for Beatrice – that gave rise to his verse.
77 ‘where I walk there are thorns’: A Woman of No Importance, Act 4.
78 ‘the world is shrivelled to a handsbreadth’: Ibid; followed in the play by ‘and where I walk there are thorns’ – see previous note.
79 reading in Pater’s Renaissance … those who wilfully live in sadness: Walter Pater’s essay ‘The Poetry of Michelangelo’ (1871), collected in Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873).
80 Tristi fummo / nell’ aer dolce che dal sol s’allegra: ‘Sad once were we, / In the sweet air made gladsome by the sun’, Inferno 7: 121–2 (H. F. Cary’s translation).
81 accidia: Sloth, one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
82 ‘sorrow remarries us to God’: Purgatorio 23: 81.
83 the delight I really felt at our meeting: This probably refers to Saturday, 27 February 1897, when Ross and Adey paid Wilde a visit.
84 Who never ate his bread … ye Heavenly Powers: Carlyle’s translation of a verse in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1795–6), book 2, chapter 13, where ‘midnight’ is ‘darksome’, ‘waiting’ is ‘watching’, and ‘Heavenly’ is ‘gloomy’.
85 that noble Queen of Prussia … humiliation and exile: Louisa (1776–1810), wife of King Frederick William III. She is said to have copied these lines when she and her husband were in flight after the Battle of Jena (1806). After the total defeat of Prussia in 1807, she went to Tilsit to plead, unavailingly, for generous terms from Napoleon, who had consistently but vainly tried to blacken her character.
86 ‘a month or twain to feed on honeycomb’: Swinburne, ‘Before Parting’ (published in Poems and Ballads, 1866); ‘feed’ should be ‘live’.
87 one of the most beautiful personalities I have ever known: Adela Schuster.
88 ‘heights that the soul is competent to gain’: Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814), 4: 139.
89 ‘gate which is called Beautiful’: Acts 3: 2.
90 The Soul of Man: ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism’, Wilde’s essay from 1891, expressing an anarchist worldview.
91 in the prose-poem … it is incarnate: A misquotation of Wilde’s prose poem ‘The Artist’, which first appeared in the Fortnightly Review for July 1894. Here the images are reversed, which perhaps suited both his mood and his argument better. Whether the reversal was deliberate or not is uncertain.
92 Marius the Epicurean: Walter Pater’s historical and philosophical novel (1885), set in ancient Rome.
93 which Wordsworth defines as the poet’s true aim: Wilde must have been thinking of Walter Pater’s essay on Wordsworth in Appreciations (1889). After quoting Wordsworth on ‘the operations of the elements and the appearances of the visible universe, on storm and sunshine, on the revolutions of the seasons, on cold and heat, on loss of friends and kindred, on injuries and resentments, on gratitude and hope, on fear and sorrow’, Pater comments: ‘To witness this spectacle with appropriate emotions is the aim of all culture.’
94 ‘When you are not … go away at once’: Referring to an earlier section of De Profundis, p. 65.
95 ‘the secret of Jesus’: ‘But there remains the question: what righteousness really is. The method and secret and sweet reasonableness of Jesus’, Literature and Dogma (1873), chapter 12.
96 Caesar Borgia, of Alexander VI: Rodrigo Borgia (1431–1503), who purchased his own election as Pope in 1492 and whose pontificate as Alexander VI is commonly regarded as the nadir of papal morals, but who, in sheer depravity, was outdone by his own son Cesare (1475/6–1507).
97 Emperor of Rome and Priest of the Sun: The effeminate, homosexual Roman emperor Heliogabulus or Elagabulus, whose rule from 218 to 222 was of legendary immorality and who was only eighteen at the time of his assassination.
98 the sufferings of those … whose dwelling is among the tombs: Mark 5: 5 and 9.
99 ‘pity and terror’: Aristotle, Poetics 13.
100 ‘Thebes and Pelops’ line’: Milton, Il Penseroso, line 99; ‘and’ should be ‘or’.
101 it would be impossible … one blameless in pain: Poetics 13.
102 ‘musical as is Apollo’s lute’: Milton, Comus, line 478.
103 Renan in his Vie de Jésus … as he had been during his lifetime: ‘S’être fait aimer, “à ce point qu’après sa mort on ne cessa pas de l’aimer,” voilà le chef-d’œuvre de Jésus et ce qui frappa le plus ses contemporains’ (chapter 28). Joseph Ernest Renan (1823–92), French philosopher and writer, best known for his Vie de Jésus (1863), which presents Jesus as an historical figure.
104 ‘The body of a child … I am not worthy of either’: An allusion to the prayer said at Mass before Communion: ‘Domine, non sum dignus …’ (‘Lord, I am not worthy …’).
105 It is tragic how few people … before they die: ‘And see all sights from pole to pole, / And glance, and nod, and bustle by – / And never once possess our soul / Before we die’, Matthew Arnold, ‘A Southern Night’ (1861).
106 ‘Nothing is more rare … an act of his own’: Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his lecture ‘The Preacher’, published posthumously in Lectures and Biographical Sketches (1883).
107 ‘Forgive your enemies’ … ‘Sell all that thou hast and give it to the poor’: Matthew 5: 44 (‘Love your enemies’) and Luke 18: 22.
108 how salt is the bread of others and how steep their stairs: Dante, Paradiso 17: 58–60: ‘Tu proverai sì come sa di sale / Lo pane altrui, e com’è duro calle / Lo scendere e il salir per l’altrui scale.’ See also the opening of Wilde’s sonnet ‘At Verona’, published in Poems (1881): ‘How steep the stairs within Kings’ houses are / For exiled-wearied feet as mine to tread, / And O how salt and bitter is the bread / which falls from this Hound’s table.’ He had already used the first line in his poem ‘Ravenna’ (1878).
109 O Seigneur, donnez-moi la force … sans dégoût: From ‘Un Voyage a Cythère’ in Les Fleurs du mal (1857). The quotation is marginally incorrect: it should read ‘Ah! Seigneur!’ and ‘mon cœur et mon corps’.
110 ‘whose silence is heard only of God’: Quoting a passage from earlier in De Profundis (p. 115).
111 but he himself had been cruel to Marsyas and had made Niobe childless … Pallas there had been no pity for Arachne: For Marsyas, see note 141 on p. 253. In boasting of her many children, Niobe is made childless by Apollo and his sister Artemis, who kill all of them. Arachne claimed to be a better weaver than Pallas Athena, her arrogance eventually causing the goddess to punish her by turning her into a spider.
112 mother of Proserpina … son of Semele: Demeter and Dionysus.
113 Cithaeron or at Enna: Mount Cithaeron was the scene of the Bacchic orgies in honour of Dionysus. It was from the flower-filled meadows of Enna that Proserpina was seized by Pluto and carried off to the underworld.
114 ‘He is despised and rejected of men … from him’: Isaiah 53: 3.
115 Christ found the type … the world was waiting: Cf. Virgil’s fourth Eclogue: ‘Jam redit et virgo’, translated literally as ‘Now the Virgin returns’ and meaning ‘Now the good times are coming back’, a reference to the goddess Astraea, who fled the earth but will one day return, signalling a new golden age.
116 ‘His visage was marred … the sons of men’: Isaiah 52: 14.
117 ‘that in which … in which Form reveals’: Quoting a passage from earlier in De Profundis (p. 110).
118 Chatterton’s ‘Ballad of Charity’: ‘An Excellent Ballad of Charity’, one of the poems composed by Thomas Chatterton (1752–70) under the pseudonym of Thomas Rowley, an imaginary monk from the fifteenth century.
119 ‘some strangeness of proportion’: Francis Bacon, ‘Of Beauty’ (from Essays, 1597).
120 ‘bloweth where it listeth … whither it goeth’: John 3: 8.
121 ‘of imagination all compact’: Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream V. i. 8.
122 I said in Dorian Gray … take place in the brain: In chapter 2.
123 Charmides: The central character of Plato’s dialogue Charmides, where he appears as a beautiful young man typifying the central theme of moderation. Wilde’s long poem of the same name is about an imaginary character.
124 γ″ εμι πoιμν ôκαλóς?: ‘I am the Good Shepherd’, John 10: 11 and 14.
125 καταμ?θετε τ … κoπι o?δ ν?θει: ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin’, Matthew 6: 28.
126 τετλεσται: ‘It is finished’, John 19: 30.
127 I love the story St Mark tells us … that the children let fall: Mark 7: 26–30.
128 it is by love and admiration that we should live: Wordsworth, The Excursion 4: 763: ‘We live by Admiration, Hope and Love’.
129 Domine, non sum dignus: See note 104 on p. 251.
130 ‘a guisa di fanciulla … e ridendo pargoleggia’: Purgatorio 16: 86–7.
131 ‘The birds didn’t … Is not the body more than raiment?’: Matthew 6: 26, 34 and 25.
132 with Ruth and Beatrice … snow-white Rose of Paradise: Cf. Dante, Paradiso 30–32.
133 ‘Even the Gods cannot alter the past’: Cf. Aristotle, Ethics 6: 2 and Pindar, Olympia 2: 15–17.
134 the Liber Conformitatum: A massive compilation illustrating the similarities in the lives of Christ and St Francis, written by Fr Bartholomaeus de Pisa in the fourteenth century and first printed in 1510.
135 as the Greek oracle said, to know oneself: ‘Know thyself’, in Greek letters, was inscribed over the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
136 When the son of Kish … already the Soul of a King: The ‘son of Kish’ is Saul; see 1 Samuel 9.
137 Verlaine and of Prince Kropotkin … passed years in prison: Paul-Marie Verlaine (1844–96) was imprisoned for wounding Rimbaud with a revolver shot. Prince Peter Alexeievitch Kropotkin, Russian author, geographer and anarchist (1842–1921), was imprisoned for his political views and actions.
138 this new personality: Major James Osmond Nelson took over the governorship of Reading Gaol in July 1896.
139 ‘my brother the wind’ and ‘my sister the rain’: ‘The Canticle of the Sun’ (c. 1224).
140 dalla vagina delle membre sue: Dante, Paradiso 1: 20–21.
141 I hear in much modern Art the cry of Marsyas: In his review of W. E. Henley’s A Book of Verses (1888), Wilde wrote: ‘To me there is more of the cry of Marsyas than of the singing of Apollo in the early poems of Mr Henley’s volume, “Rhymes and Rhythms in Hospital” as he calls them. But it is impossible to deny their power.’ Marsyas was a mortal who challenged Apollo to a musical competition and was flayed alive for his pains. References to this myth recur often in Wilde’s later letters.
142 Even Matthew Arnold … has not a little of it: ‘Oh! that Fate had let me see / That triumph of the sweet persuasive lyre, / That famous, final victory, / When jealous Pan with Marsyas did conspire’, Empedocles on Etna (1852), Act 2.
143 the Phrygian Faun: ‘Marsyas, that unhappy Faun’, ibid.
144 I remember I used to say … a mask of noble sorrow: Cf. ‘Some noble grief that we think will lend the purple dignity of tragedy to our days’, ‘The Critic as Artist’, part 2. Wilde uses similar imagery – the wearing of stately purple to denote a sad dignity – throughout the letters.
145 It is said that … mean to the looker-on: ‘It is said all martyrdoms looked mean when they were suffered’, Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Experience’, published in Essays: Second Series (1844).
146 On November 13th 1895 … from London: It was actually 21 November.
147 I say, in Dorian Gray somewhere, that ‘a man … choice of enemies’: Chapter 1.
148 It was like feasting with panthers: An echo from Balzac’s Illusions perdues (1837–43): ‘Aussi, ce soir me semble-t-il que je soupe avec des lions et des panthères qui me font l’honneur de velouter leurs pattes’, part 2, chapter 18.
149 Clibborn and Atkins: Clibborn, referred to in the Queensberry trial as ‘Cliburn’, was a professional blackmailer who failed to extort any money from Wilde in respect of the letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, written probably in January 1893, which had been stolen from Douglas by an agent of the blackmailing gang. Clibborn was later sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude for blackmailing offences. ‘Atkins’ (see note 46 on p. 247), is probably a slip for ‘Allen’, a blackmailing associate of Clibborn’s.
150 Voilà où mènent les mauvais chemins!: The last five words are the title of the third part of Balzac’s Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (1838–47), in which the misguided life of Lucien de Rubempré comes to its pitiful and tragic end. Vincent O’Sullivan records Wilde’s saying: ‘When I was a boy my two favourite characters were Lucien de Rubempré and Julien Sorel [in Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir]. Lucien hanged himself, Julien died on the scaffold, and I died in prison’, Aspects of Wilde (London: Constable, 1936), p. 36.
151 But what a trade! What a competition!: For Queensberry’s letters to his son, see Merlin Holland, Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde (London: Fourth Estate, 2003), pp. 214–8.
152 Alfred Wood: A blackmailer who gave evidence at Wilde’s trials.
153 Madame Roland: Marie-Jeanne ‘Manon’ Phlipon (1754–93), bluestocking and hostess, married (1781) Jean-Marie Roland (1734–93), who later held office in the revolutionary government. Eventually, they fell foul of Marat, Madame Roland was arrested, wrote her Mémoires in the Conciergerie and was guillotined, after exclaiming, ‘O Liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!’ Her husband killed himself two days later.
154 George Wyndham: The Right Honourable George Wyndham (1863–1913), son of the Honourable Percy Scawen Wyndham and grandson of the 1st Baron Leconfield. He had been MP for Dover since 1889 and private secretary to Mr Balfour in 1887– 92. He later reached the Cabinet. He wrote a number of books on literary subjects and was a relation of Lord Alfred Douglas.
155 the small notoriety of a second divorce suit: Queensberry, having been divorced by his first wife in 1887, remarried in 1893 a Miss Ethel Weeden, who obtained a decree of nullity against him on 24 October 1894.
156 Of this public I have said … Tartuffe for the other: There is no such remark in any of Wilde’s published plays, but it was part of a long speech at the beginning of Act 3 of A Woman of No Importance which the actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree (see note 34 on p. 246) persuaded Wilde to omit.
157 a silly question asked … the Crown and by the Judge: On 25 May 1895, the sixth and last day of Wilde’s final trial, the foreman of the jury asked the judge if a warrant had been issued for the arrest of Lord Alfred Douglas or if it had been contemplated. The judge replied: ‘Not to my knowledge.’ He then instructed the jury to deliberate on the case in question without considering the case against Lord Alfred Douglas. In fact, the Director of Public Prosecutions had taken advice from the Senior Treasury Counsel, who wrote on 19 April 1895, a week before Wilde’s first trial, that the evidence against Douglas was too slim and that it would be ‘undesirable to start such a prosecution unless there was a strong possibility that it would result in a conviction’. See Merlin Holland, Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde (London: Fourth Estate, 2003), pp. 294–6
158 She has chosen Adrian Hope … and with him Cyril and Vyvyan have a good chance of a beautiful future: See note 71 on p. 248.
159 delightful as cynicism is … man who has no soul: Diogenes, the Cynic philosopher (419–324 BC), lived in a tub.
160 a friend of ten years’ standing: It was Frank Harris, according to himself, but more likely R. H. Sherard.
161 listening to Lockwood’s: The Solicitor-General, Sir Frank Lockwood (1847–97), who led for the prosecution in Wilde’s second trial.
162 like one of Savonarola’s indictments of the Popes at Rome: Girolamo Savonarola (1452–98), Dominican friar who called for reformation of the Church, defying the ban on preaching placed on him by Pope Alexander VI, which led to his excommunication and execution.
163 Emotional forces, as I say somewhere in Intentions … forces of physical energy: See ‘The Critic as Artist’, part 2.
164 The martyr in his ‘shirt of flame’: Alexander Smith, ‘A Life-Drama’ (published in A Life-Drama and Other Poems, 1853), scene ii: ‘Like a pale martyr in his shirt of fire’.
165 Brutus used madness … the dagger of his will: Not the Brutus of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, but Junius Brutus who expelled Tarquin, the last king of Rome.
166 ‘the contemplation of the spectacle of life with appropriate emotions’: See note 93 on p. 250.
167 ‘report Hamlet and his cause aright to the unsatisfied’: Shakespeare, Hamlet V. ii. 334–5 (‘Hamlet’ and ‘his’ should be ‘me’ and ‘my’).
168 Absents him … draws his breath in pain: Ibid., 345–6 (‘Absents him’ and ‘Absent his’ should be ‘draws thee’ and ‘draw thy’).
169 Angelo: A character in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.
170 He who writes a new De Amicitia … in Tusculan prose: A reference to Cicero, author of De Amicitia (On Friendship) and Tusculanae Disputationes (Tusculan Disputations), the latter believed to have been written at his villa in Tusculum – hence ‘Tusculan’.
171 the special cuvée of Perrier-Jouët reserved always for us: Evidently a favourite with Wilde as Perrier-Jouët makes another appearance at the end of Act 3 of The Importance of Being Earnest.
172 Θ?λασσα κλ′ζεi π?ντα τ’νθρ″πων κακ?: Iphigenia in Tauris, line 1193.
173 Linnaeus fell on his knees … blossoms of the common furze: Carl Linnaeus (1707–78), the Swedish botanist and zoologist who established the principle of the two-part naming of species, visited England in 1736 where he passed on his system of classification, as laid out in his recently published Systema Naturae (1735).
174 Like Gautier … pour qui le monde visible existe: ‘Critiques et louanges me louent et m’abîment sans comprendre un mot de ce que je suis. Toute ma valeur, ils n’ont jamais parlé de cela, c’est que je suis un homme pour qui le monde visible existe’, the French poet Théophile Gautier (1811–72), quoted in the Journal des Goncourt for 1 May 1857. Wilde used the phrase in chapter 11 of Dorian Gray, to describe Dorian.
175 ‘because of his importunity’: Luke 11: 5–8.
176 Miser of sound and syllable, no less / Than Midas of his coinage: Keats, ‘On the Sonnet’ (1819) (‘Misers’ in original).
177 ‘Where others … the sons of God shouting for joy’: ‘“What,” it will be Questioned, “When the Sun rises, do you not see a round Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea?” O no, no, I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty”’, William Blake’s commentary on his painting A Vision of the Last Judgment in the second edition of the Descriptive Catalogue (1810). See also Job 38: 7.
1 This letter to Ross, clearly intended to be dispatched to him at the same time as the MS of De Profundis, may well have been held back by the authorities for similar reasons (see note 1, p. 243). It resulted in Wilde repeating some of the contents of this letter in the subsequent one of 6 April.
2 It is not unlikely that you may help me: The letter, from which extracts were later published under the title De Profundis in 1905, was handed by Oscar Wilde to Robert Ross, who had remained loyal to him, on the day after Wilde left prison. Ross had two typed copies made, one of which was sent to Lord Alfred Douglas, although he denied receiving it. A fuller version was published in 1908, and in 1909 Ross presented the original to the British Museum. For more detail, see note 1 on p. 243.
3 Mrs Marshall: The owner of a typing agency on the Strand to whom Wilde had previously sent the manuscripts of An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest.
4 Hornton Street or Phillimore Gardens: More Adey and Robert Ross shared lodgings at 24 Hornton Street, Kensington, and Ross’s mother lived nearby at 11 Upper Phillimore Gardens.
5 from ‘and the end of it … I must forgive you’ … page 4: Most of these two passages were included in the 1905 edition of De Profundis (see note 1 on p. 243).
6 Frankie Forbes-Robertson: Frances (‘Frankie’) Harrod (1866– 1956), painter and novelist; sister of Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson (see note 27 on p. 237). They were among eleven children of John Forbes-Robertson, a theatre critic and journalist, and his wife Frances.
7 ‘Habet Mundus Epistolam’: ‘The world has the letter’.
8 Epistola: In Carcere et Vinculis: ‘Letter: In Prison and in Chains’.
9 ‘cleansed my bosom of much perilous stuff’: Shakespeare, Macbeth V. iii. 46: ‘Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff’.
10 the poet whom … rescuing from the Philistine: Max Meyerfeld says that this refers to Ross’s joking suggestion of founding an Anti-Shakespeare Society to combat exaggerated Bardolotry and that Douglas’s sonnet ‘To Shakespeare’ (published in The City of the Soul, 1899) was written in anger at the suggestion. Douglas, it seemed, missed the joke, or misunderstood that the idea of the society was to rescue Shakespeare from the masses. See Max Meyerfield, Oscar Wilde: De Profundis (Berlin: 1909), p. 184.
11 20th March 1896: Actually 10 March.
12 She warned me … she will do so: On 26 March, Constance Wilde wrote from Italy to her brother: ‘I have again had pressure put upon me to persuade me to go back to Oscar, but I am sure you will agree that it is impossible. I am told that I would save a human soul, but I have no influence over Oscar. I have had none, and though I think he is affectionate I see no reason for believing that I should be able now to perform miracles, and I must look after my boys and not risk their future.’
13 But surely you were something better / Than innocent!: From Swinburne’s ‘Adieux à Marie Stuart’ (published in Tristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems, 1882).
14 damnosa haereditas: A legal term for that portion of the property of a bankrupt that constitutes a charge to the creditors.
15 £50 conveyed through Leverson: This must refer to Wilde’s brother and sister-in-law, since Mrs Willie Wilde was the only recipient of £50 from Leverson.
16 a letter I am sending to More Adey at the same time as this: See the letter that follows. Although this letter repeats much of the proceeding one, it is included for the extra matter which it contains.
17 But surely you were something better / Than innocent!: See note 13 above.
18 Labouchère, Stead: Henry Du Pré Labouchère (1831–1912), Radical MP for Northampton 1880–1906, introduced Clause 11 to the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 outlawing male homosexuality. William Thomas Stead (1849–1912), editor of the Pall Mall Gazette 1883–9, launched a campaign in 1885 against the white slave traffic and organized vice. He was drowned on the Titanic.
19 Meredith’s novel: George Meredith, The Amazing Marriage, first published on 15 November 1895.
20 Rossetti’s letters are dreadful: Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Family-Letters, with a Memoir by William Michael Rossetti, published in two volumes in 1895.
21 my grand-uncle’s Melmoth and my mother’s Sidonia: For Melmoth, see note 46 on p. 261. Sidonia the Sorceress, Lady Wilde’s translation of the Gothic romance Sidonia von Bork by Wilhelm Meinhold, was published in 1849.
22 As regards the conspiracy … The conduct of a thrush in Cheyne Walk: This incident in fact took place at Broadlands in Hampshire. W. M. Rossetti wrote: ‘I remember there was once a thrush hard by, which, to my hearing, simply trilled its own lay on and off. My brother discerned a different note, and conceived that the thrush had been trained to ejaculate something insulting to him. Such is perverted fantasy – or I may rather infer such is an outcome of chloral-dosing’, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Family-Letters (London: Ellis and Elvey, 1895), volume 1, p. 339. The poet Dr Thomas Gordon Hake (1809–95) was one of D. G. Rossetti’s closest friends. His son Alfred Egmont Hake, author of Free Trade in Capital (1891) and other books, invented a new system of banking which had amused Wilde.
23 Stevenson letters most disappointing also: Robert Louis Stevenson, Vailima Letters (1895) – see note 35 on p. 238.
24 En Route is most over-rated: This novel by J.-K. Huysmans (1848–1907) was first published in 1895.
25 It is worse French than Ohnet’s: Georges Ohnet (1848–1918), prolific and popular French novelist.
26 Huysmans tries not to be, and is …: All ellipses in this letter are Wilde’s.
27 Hardy’s novel is pleasant, and Frederic’s: Thomas Hardy, The Well-Beloved, published 16 March 1897, and Illumination by the American novelist Harold Frederic (1856–98).
28 Stanley Weyman: Stanley John Weyman (1855–1928) had already published nine historical novels, including Under the Red Robe (1894) and Memoirs of a Minister of France (1895).
29 You mentioned Henley had a protégé: Probably H. G. Wells, whose first novel, The Time Machine (1895), had been serialized by W. E. Henley (see notes 74 and 141 on pp. 249 and 253) in the New Review.
30 the ‘Anthony Hope’ man: Pen-name of Anthony Hope Hawkins (1863–1933), author of many books. In 1894 he scored a double success with The Dolly Dialogues and The Prisoner of Zenda.
31 Cosmo Lennox … Gilbert Burgess, Max: Cosmo Charles Gordon-Lennox (1869–1921), actor, playwright and adapter. He played the part of the Vicomte de Nanjac in the original production of An Ideal Husband. Gilbert Burgess (1868– 1911), author and journalist. The writer and caricaturist Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) responded to Wilde’s appeal and sent four books, including his own Works and The Happy Hypocrite (both 1896).
32 Miss Siddal is fascinating, and her poem A1: This poem, ‘A Year and a Day’ by Rossetti’s wife Elizabeth Siddal, is printed on pp. 176–7 of the first volume of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Family-Letters (see notes 20 and 22 on p. 259).
33 French Books: Some of the items on the list that follows have been scored through lightly in ink or pencil. This may conceivably have been done by the prison authorities (as has been suggested), but it looks much more as if Ross had struck out, at different times, in different ways, and with different pens and pencils, those items he obtained. Moreover, the publication dates of some of the books, and the objects at the end of the list, make it clear that these were the books and objects that Wilde hoped would be waiting for him when he left prison, so that the authorities cannot have been concerned.
34 Translated by Father [H. S.] Bowden: There exists a letter from Father Bowden to Wilde, written from the Oratory, London, on 15 April 1878, from which it is clear that Wilde had visited him on the previous day to ask for advice about the possibility of joining the Roman Catholic Church.
35 Arthur Morrison … Criminology series: Wilde was confusing the novelist Arthur Morrison (1863–1945), author of Tales of Mean Streets (1894), with the Reverend William Douglas Morrison (1852–1943), a prison chaplain and author of Crime and its Causes (1891) and Juvenile Offenders (1896).
36 Humphreys: Almost certainly Arthur Humphreys, the bookseller, who provided Wilde with books while in prison and whom Wilde thanked personally at Hatchards on the day of his release.
37 Mr Horatio Lloyd: John Horatio Lloyd, Constance’s grandfather, a former MP and lawyer.
38 Sporus: The young boy whom the emperor Nero had castrated and later married, making him appear in public as his wife.
39 my own portrait: By the American artist Robert Goodloe Harper Pennington (c. 1854–1920).
40 Will Rothenstein … Shannon’s pastel of the Moon: For Rothenstein, see note 45 on p. 246. Charles Shannon (1863–1937), artist and illustrator well known for his portraits.
41 promises me ginger biscuits!: At the bottom of this note Martin wrote in pencil: ‘Your ungrateful I done more than promise.’ This and the three short pieces that follow are examples of surreptitious notes, written on odd scraps of paper, which Wilde passed to him in prison.
42 You must get me his address some day: On the back of the note Martin wrote: ‘However to compromise matters I will ask him [A.3.2] verbally for his address if that would suit you as well. Do you think you could pass the Chronicle under the door. Today’s very easy for him to know who give it as there is no one in the prison at present but your humble servant.’
43 To the Home Secretary: Like Wilde’s previous letters to the Home Secretary, this was written on an official form – see note 38 on p. 238.
44 20th May, 1895: Actually 25 May, but Wilde’s sentence ran, as the custom was, from the first day of the Sessions (20 May 1895). Remission for good conduct was allowed only to prisoners undergoing penal servitude (three years or more).
45 A.2.11: A.2.11 was a half-witted soldier called Prince. By paying their fines Wilde secured the release of these three children, who had been convicted of snaring rabbits. Warder Martin gave a biscuit to one of the children who was crying, and was dismissed in consequence.
46 Mr Melmoth: From the ‘Wandering Jew’ hero of Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) by the Irish writer Charles Robert Maturin (1782–1824), who was Wilde’s great-uncle. Robert Ross and More Adey had collaborated in an anonymous biographical introduction to a new edition of the novel in 1892, and Ross suggested this alias to Wilde. The Christian name Sebastian was probably in memory of the martyred saint.
47 Stewart Headlam’s: The Reverend Stewart Duckworth Headlam (1847–1924) had been for many years a vicar in the East End of London, but his socialism and religious unorthodoxy cost him his position in the Church. He was now living at 31 Upper Bedford Place, Bloomsbury. He had private means and, although he scarcely knew Wilde, had gone bail for him in 1895 because he thought the case was being prejudged and now offered his house as temporary asylum.
48 To the Editor of the Daily Chronicle: This letter was thus dated when it appeared in the Daily Chronicle, under the heading ‘the case of warder martin, some cruelties of prison life’, on 28 May, but it was presumably begun on or soon after the 24th, when the Daily Chronicle printed a letter from Warder Martin recounting the circumstances of his dismissal (see note 45 on p. 254) and added an editorial comment: ‘We are, of course, unable to verify our correspondent’s statement, but we print his letter.’ On the 28th, Wilde’s letter was backed up by two leading articles, and another letter from Martin, discussing the Home Secretary’s denial (in reply to a question from Michael Davitt, MP – see note 56 below) that the facts were as Martin had stated them.
49 Eccelino da Romano: Ghibelline leader (1194–1259) whose cruelties earned him a place in Dante’s Inferno.
50 ‘the silent rhythmic charm of human companionship’: Carlyle, Shooting Niagara: and After? (1867), section IX: ‘the silent charm of rhythmic human companionship’.
51 to see that the lunatic prisoner is properly treated: For earlier reference to Prince, see note 45 on p. 261.
52 To an Unidentified Correspondent: This was one of a number of letters Wilde enclosed in a letter to Robert Ross for sending on to the individuals in question, in this case one of three prisoners Wilde had known in Reading Gaol – either ‘Ford’, ‘Bushell’ or ‘Millward’, as identified in the letter to Ross – and to whom he felt himself indebted and hence was sending money via Ross.
53 Massingham: H. W. Massingham (1860–1924), editor of the Daily Chronicle 1895–9.
54 I have also asked him … outcasts and beggars: The only further prose-writing of Wilde’s about his prison experiences was a second letter to the Daily Chronicle in March 1898.
55 I have heard from my wife … I want my boys: On 24 May, Constance Wilde wrote from Italy to her brother: ‘O has written me a letter full of penitence and I have answered it’ and on 5 August: ‘Oscar wanted me to bring the boys to Dieppe, and then wanted to come to me, but I think Mr [Carlos] Blacker has persuaded him to wait and come to me at Nervi when I am settled.’
56 Michael Davitt: Irish writer and socialist politician (1846–1906) who suffered frequent imprisonment for Fenian, Land League and similar activities; he was several times elected to Parliament. His published work includes Leaves from a Prison Diary (1885). He had already, on 25 and 27 May, asked two questions in the House of Commons about the dismissal of Warder Martin (see note 48 on p. 262).
57 You suffered for what was done by someone else: In 1870 Davitt had been sentenced to fourteen years’ imprisonment for treason. The ‘someone else’, Arthur Forrester (1850–95), seems to have been anxious to murder a supposed traitor in the Fenian ranks. Davitt wrote him a letter which the jury took to be an incitement to murder, though modern historians disagree. Davitt served seven years and was then released on a ticket-of-leave, which was several times withdrawn when his political activities became troublesome.
58 To the Editor of the Daily Chronicle: This letter appeared in the Daily Chronicle, under the heading ‘don’t read this if you want to be happy today’, on 24 March 1898, when the House of Commons began the debate on the second reading of the Prison Bill. This, which introduced some of the improvements suggested by Wilde, became law in August as the Prison Act.
1 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL: After his release from prison on 19 May 1897, Wilde went to France where he began work on this poem, finishing a first draft in August. In October, as he worked on revisions, he wrote to Robert Ross: ‘The poem suffers under the difficulty of a divided aim in style. Some is realistic, some is romantic, some poetry, some propaganda.’ The poem was first published on 13 February 1898 by Leonard Smithers. Wilde’s prison number, C.3.3., rather than his name appeared on the title page until the seventh edition when it was placed in brackets below his number. The poem tells the story of a trooper of the Royal Horse Guards, Charles Thomas Wooldridge, who was awaiting execution for the murder of his wife. On 7 July 1896 he was hanged. Wilde included this dedication in the book: ‘In Memoriam C.T.W. Sometime Trooper of the Royal Horse Guards. Obiit H.M. Prison, Reading, Berkshire, July 7th 1896.’
2 He did not wear his scarlet coat: Wilde adapts facts to suit his poem here. Trooper Wooldridge’s coat was actually blue, the colour of the Royal Horse Guards. When taxed by a correspondent with using the wrong colour, Wilde is said to have replied that he could hardly have opened his poem ‘He did not wear his azure coat / for blood and wine are blue’ (Hesketh Pearson, The Life of Oscar Wilde (London: Methuen, 1946), p. 350.)
3 The poor dead woman … murdered in her bed: Wooldridge’s wife was, in fact, murdered on the road near her home.
4 a suit of shabby grey: Wooldridge, as a remand prisoner, wore the clothes in which he was arrested.
5 I walked … / Within another ring: Prisoners took exercise by walking single file in a ring.
6 Yet each man kills the thing he loves: Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice IV. i. 66: ‘Do all men kill the things they do not love?’
7 silent men / Who watch him night and day: Those condemned to death were placed under continuous observation.
8 The shivering Chaplain robed in white: The Chaplain was the Reverend Martin Thomas Friend (1843–1934), who was appointed to Reading Gaol in 1872. He served there for forty-one years.
9 the Governor all in shiny black: Henry Bevan Isaacson (1842– 1915), a retired lieutenant-colonel, was governor of Reading Gaol from 1895 to 1896.
10 binds one with three leathern thongs: A prisoner awaiting execution was bound at wrists, knees and elbows.
11 Caiaphas: The high priest who paid Judas for betraying Jesus.
12 peek: Presumably means ‘peak’.
13 green or dry: Luke 23: 31: ‘For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?’
14 At last the dead man walked no more / Amongst the Trial Men: Wooldridge’s final sentencing took place on 17 June 1896. Condemned men were kept away from the rest of the prisoners.
15 the iron gin: A snare or trap.
16 The Regulations Act: A law, considered inadequate by prison reformers, that placed prisons under government supervision and prescribed humane treatment for prisoners.
17 The Doctor: The prison medical officer Dr Oliver Maurice.
18 We tore the tarry rope to shreds: Prisoners like Wilde who were sentenced to hard labour had to unravel the loose fibres, called oakum, from old ships’ rope. This work caused the skin to dry and split and was very painful. Wilde performed such work at the beginning of his sentence, 28 May–4 July 1895.
19 we soaped the plank: The plank bed.
20 We turned the dusty drill: One of the tasks assigned to prisoners was the crank, a narrow drum with a long handle that raised and emptied cups of sand.
21 sweated on the mill: The treadmill, used to pump water. Both the treadmill and the crank were abolished in 1898.
22 bitter wine upon a sponge: Jesus on the cross was given a sponge full of vinegar to assuage his thirst.
23 The grey cock crew, the red cock crew: When Peter denied Christ, a cock crowed (Matthew 26:34).
24 rigadoon: A dance for two people.
25 mop and mow: Grimaces.
26 gyves: Shackles.
27 demirep: A woman with a doubtful reputation.
28 seneschal: The person in charge of domestic arrangements in a noble house.
29 the Herald came: The executioner was called Billington.
30 running noose: A rope running through an eyelet to ensure a strong jolt and a quick death.
31 to wait for the sign to come: The tolling bell of St Lawrence’s Church, Reading, fifteen minutes before the hanging and continuously thereafter.
32 Strangled into a scream: In fact, the prisoner seems to have died without a struggle and without a word.
33 in monstrous garb / With crooked arrows starred: Marks on the prison uniform in the shape of arrows.
34 the burning lime / Eats flesh and bone away: Executed prisoners were buried in lime, so the corpse would quickly dissolve.
35 the barren staff … / Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight: Tannhäuser asked the Pope for forgiveness for having sinned with Venus, but the Pope declared it as impossible as the idea that roses might bloom on the pilgrim’s staff. Soon, the staff burst into bloom.
36 The shard, the pebble, and the flint: Shakespeare, Hamlet V. i. 239: ‘Shards, flints and pebbles should be thrown on her.’
37 Life’s appointed bourne: Ibid., 77–9: ‘The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn / No traveller returns.’
38 And alien tears … outcasts always mourn: These four lines were inscribed on Jacob Epstein’s monument over Wilde’s grave in Père-Lachaise.
39 straws the wheat and saves the chaff / With a most evil fan: Matthew 3: 12: ‘Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner: but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’
40 Till it weeps both night and day: See letter to the Daily Chronicle of 27 May 1897 (p. 188).
41 broken box … scent of costliest nard: See Mark 14: 3–9, where Christ, dining with Simon the leper, is approached by a woman carrying an alabaster box of ointment. She breaks it open and pours the precious oils upon his head. For this, her sins are forgiven.
42 The Thief to Paradise: See Luke 23: 39–43, where Christ says to the thief who repents: ‘Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.’
43 a broken and a contrite heart … not despise: Psalm 51: 17: ‘a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.’
44 The man in red who reads the Law / Gave him three weeks of life: The judge who sentenced Wooldridge to death was Mr Justice Henry Hawkins (1817–1907) at the Berkshire Assizes on 17 June; the execution took place three weeks later.
45 the crimson stain that was of Cain … snow-white seal: Cain, who killed his brother, was marked by God lest he be killed in return. See also Isaiah 1: 18: ‘Come now, and let us reason, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’