The Fifth Earl of Rosebery was the most glamorous Liberal politician of the late Victorian age. Charismatic, enlightened, wealthy and intellectually brilliant, he once said that he had three ambitions: to marry an heiress, win the Derby and become Prime Minister. By his mid-forties, he had achieved all three. But his political career was clouded by his mercurial character. Self-centred, impulsive and neurotic, he shrouded himself in mystery and was caught up in many of the greatest scandals of his era. Now, using a wealth of archival material, award-winning author Leo McKinstry reveals the dramatic, compelling story behind this paradoxical figure.

Oscar Wilde said of himself, "I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my work." Now, for the first time, Neil McKenna focuses on the tormented genius of Wilde's personal life, reproducing remarkable love letters and detailing Wilde's until-now unknown relationships with other men. McKenna has spent years researching Wilde's life, drawing on extensive new material, including never-before published poems as well as recently discovered trial statements made by male prostitutes and blackmailers about Wilde. McKenna provides explosive evidence of the political machinations behind Wilde's trials for sodomy, as well as his central role in the burgeoning gay world of Victorian London. Dazzlingly written and meticulously researched, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde fully charts Wilde's astonishing odyssey through London's sexual underworld and paints a frank and vivid psychological portrait of a troubled genius.