“And I? May I say nothing, my lord?” With these words, Oscar Wilde’s courtroom trials came to a close. The lord in question, High Court justice Sir Alfred Wills, sent Wilde to the cells, sentenced to two years in prison with hard labor for the crime of “gross indecency” with other men. As cries of “shame” emanated from the gallery, the convicted aesthete was roundly silenced.But he did not remain so. Behind bars and in the period immediately after his release, Wilde wrote two of his most powerful works―the long autobiographical letter De Profundis and an expansive best-selling poem, The Ballad of Reading Gaol. In The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde, Nicholas Frankel collects these and other prison writings, accompanied by historical illustrations and his rich facing-page annotations. As Frankel shows, Wilde experienced prison conditions designed to break even the toughest spirit, and yet his writings from this period display an imaginative and verbal brilliance left largely intact. Wilde also remained politically steadfast, determined that his writings should inspire improvements to Victorian England’s grotesque regimes of punishment. But while his reformist impulse spoke to his moment, Wilde also wrote for eternity.At once a savage indictment of the society that jailed him and a moving testimony to private sufferings, Wilde’s prison writings―illuminated by Frankel’s extensive notes―reveal a very different man from the famous dandy and aesthete who shocked and amused the English-speaking world.
✔ Author(s): Oscar Wilde,Nicholas Frankel
✔ Title: The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde
✔ Rating : 4.8 out of 5 base on (51 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 0674984382
✔ ISBN-13: 9780674984387
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde by Oscar Wilde
Beata Shepard
I must confess, this book made me shed tears like never before. The themes of love, loss, and resilience struck a chord with my soul. It was an emotional journey I'm grateful to have taken.
Josephine Alvarez
The world created in this book was unlike anything I've ever encountered. The author's imagination knows no bounds, and I was completely mesmerized by the fantastical setting.
Rosa Bax
This book is a work of art. The language, the imagery, the symbolism - everything came together beautifully to create a memorable reading experience.
