The first biography of Oscar Wilde that places him within the context of his family and social and historical milieu--a compelling volume that finally tells the whole story. It's widely known that Oscar Wilde was precociously intellectual, flamboyant, and hedonistic--but lesser so that he owed these characteristics to his parents. Oscar's mother, Lady Jane Wilde, rose to prominence as a political journalist, advocating a rebellion against colonialism in 1848. Proud, involved, and challenging, she opened a salon and was known as the most scintillating hostess of her day. She passed on her infectious delight in the art of living to Oscar, who drank it in greedily. His father, Sir William Wilde, was acutely conscious of injustices of the social order. He laid the foundations for the Celtic cultural renaissance in the belief that culture would establish a common ground between the privileged and the poor, Protestant and Catholic. But Sir William was also a philanderer, and when he stood accused of sexually assaulting a young female patient, the scandal and trial sent shockwaves through Dublin society. After his death, the Wildes decamped to London where Oscar burst irrepressibly upon the scene. The one role that didn't suit him was that of Victorian husband, as his wife, Constance, was to discover. For beneath his swelling head was a self-destructive itch: a lifelong devourer of attention, Oscar was unable to recognize when the party was over. Ultimately, his trial for indecency heralded the death of decadence--and his own. In a major repositioning of our first modern celebrity, The Fall of the House of Wilde identifies Oscar Wilde as a member of one of the most dazzling Irish American families of Victorian times, and places him in the broader social, political, and religious context. It is a fresh and perceptive account of one of the most prominent characters of the late nineteenth century.

________________'Emer O'Sullivan has made an indispensable contribution to Wildean literature ... Compelling, informative and fascinating' - Stephen Fry 'Vivid and meticulously researched ... The name of Wilde stands for "what is singular, independent-minded, and fearless". Words that also describe this splendid book *****' - Frances Wilson, Mail on Sunday'O'Sullivan vividly evokes the cultural vitalities Oscar inherited from the house he was born into ... Hugely readable' - John Sutherland, The Times________________Oscar Wilde's father - scientist, surgeon, archaeologist, writer - was one of the most eminent men of his generation. His mother - poet, journalist, translator - hosted an influential salon at 1 Merrion Square. Together they were one of Victorian Ireland's most dazzling and enlightened couples. When, in 1864, Sir William Wilde was accused of sexually assaulting a female patient, it sent shock waves through Dublin society. After his death some ten years later, Jane attempted to re-establish the family in London, where Oscar burst irrepressibly upon the scene, only to fall in a trial as public as his father's. A remarkable and perceptive account, The Fall of the House of Wilde is a major repositioning of our first modern celebrity, a man whose fall from grace marked the end of fin de siècle decadence.

The fullest, most textural, most accurate—most human—account of Oscar Wilde's unique and dazzling life—based on extensive new research and newly discovered materials, from Wilde's personal letters and transcripts of his first trial to newly uncovered papers of his early romantic (and dangerous) escapades and the two-year prison term that shattered his soul and his life. "Simply the best modern biography of Wilde." —Evening Standard Drawing on material that has come to light in the past thirty years, including newly discovered letters, documents, first draft notebooks, and the full transcript of the libel trial, Matthew Sturgis meticulously portrays the key events and influences that shaped Oscar Wilde's life, returning the man "to his times, and to the facts," giving us Wilde's own experience as he experienced it. Here, fully and richly portrayed, is Wilde's Irish childhood; a dreamy, aloof boy; a stellar classicist at boarding school; a born entertainer with a talent for comedy and a need for an audience; his years at Oxford, a brilliant undergraduate punctuated by his reckless disregard for authority . . . his arrival in London, in 1878, "already noticeable everywhere" . . . his ten-year marriage to Constance Lloyd, the father of two boys; Constance unwittingly welcoming young men into the household who became Oscar's lovers, and dying in exile at the age of thirty-nine . . . Wilde's development as a playwright. . . becoming the high priest of the aesthetic movement; his successes . . . his celebrity. . . and in later years, his irresistible pull toward another—double—life, in flagrant defiance and disregard of England's strict sodomy laws ("the blackmailer's charter"); the tragic story of his fall that sent him to prison for two years at hard labor, destroying his life and shattering his soul.

From Fran Wilde comes Updraft, the Nebula finalist and Andre Norton Award-winning first novel in the Bone Universe saga Welcome to a world of wind and bone, songs and silence, betrayal and courage. Kirit Densira cannot wait to pass her wingtest and begin flying as a trader by her mother's side, being in service to her beloved home tower and exploring the skies beyond. When Kirit inadvertently breaks Tower Law, the city's secretive governing body, the Singers, demand that she become one of them instead. In an attempt to save her family from greater censure, Kirit must give up her dreams to throw herself into the dangerous training at the Spire, the tallest, most forbidding tower, deep at the heart of the City. As she grows in knowledge and power, she starts to uncover the depths of Spire secrets. Kirit begins to doubt her world and its unassailable Laws, setting in motion a chain of events that will lead to a haunting choice, and may well change the city forever—if it isn't destroyed outright. Bone Universe 1) Updraft 2) Cloudbound 3) Horizon (September 2017) At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

THE STORY: In early 1895, the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of Wilde's young lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, left a card at Wilde's club bearing the phrase posing somdomite. Wilde sued the Marquess for criminal libel. The defense denounced Wild

A luminous drama about Wilde's wife's struggle for redemption. The play traces the hidden life of Constance Wilde. Her story explores the gender and sexuality of people who "belonged to the future," and untangles the shifting lines in the complex relationship between her, her husband, and his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. Through a drama of magical transformations and mysterious, masked figures, set against the back-ground of one of the most notorious cases in British legal history, Kilroy divines the cost of the characters' conduct, Oscar's plea for salvation in Constance's eyes, and her heroic exertion to reclaim a state of grace.

The dramatic story of the legal and emotional battle that raged between two of Oscar Wilde's closest friends – both former lovers – following the playwright's death