The first major biography of Oscar Wilde in thirty years is the most complete telling of his life and times to date.
Matthew Sturgis is the author of acclaimed biographies of Aubrey Beardsley and Walter Sickert, as well as Passionate Attitudes: The English Decadence of the 1890s. He has contributed to the TLS, Harpers & Queen and the Independent on Sunday. Matthew is on the editorial board of The Wildean, the journal of the Oscar Wilde society.
However much you think you know about Wilde, this book will absorb
and entertain you. It thickens the texture of every aspect of his
unique life – dazzling, decadent and doomed
*Sunday Times*
A perfectly diligent book, and tells new readers all they possibly
need to know about Wilde and his world
*The Times*
Authoritative, magnificently researched
*Spectator*
Matthew Sturgis uses new letters and a libel trial transcript to
give a fuller picture of Oscar Wilde's dazzling rise and tragic
fall... He is a tremendous orchestrator of material, fastidious,
unhurried, indefatigable'
*Observer*
Oscar Wilde is more fashionable than ever, and his demise still
makes for a gripping read... Sturgis's account is fuller and in
some ways more reliable [than Richard Ellmann's biography]...
Sturgis's account of the hearing at the Old Bailey is as gripping
as it is grim'
*Guardian*
[Sturgis's biography] is the first major attempt since that of
Richard Ellman some 30 years ago, and it's much better... This is
simply the best modern biography of Wilde... A terrific
achievement'
*Evening Standard*
The Book of the Year, perhaps of the decade... Captures the wit,
the love-ability, the dramatic genius, the insane
self-destructiveness, the originality of Wilde... [Sturgis] is the
greatest chronicler of the 1890s we have ever had'
*TLS, Books of the Year*
Astute in its judgements and offers a sharp and detailed grasp of
the period and an appreciation of Wilde's ambiguities
*Irish Times, Books of the Year, Colm Tóibín*
The first major biography of the great Oscar Wilde in 30 years
offers a sumptuous insight into the life of the famous – and
infamous – fin de siècle playwright, author and poet
*Mail on Sunday, Books of the Year, Craig Brown.*
Like Churchill, Oscar Wilde [...] is one of those people who never
seem to stop inspiring outstanding biographies, and Oscar: A Life
by Matthew Sturgis is one of the best, as well as the latest, of a
long line
*Sunday Telegraph.*
A first rate biography
*Sunday Express, Books of the Year*
This book provides not only a comprehensive record of [Wilde's]
activities, friendships and financial affairs, but also a powerful
sense of what it was actually like to know him... This is
undoubtedly the most comprehensive, reliable and clear-sighted
study of Wilde ever likely to be written'
*Dublin Sunday Business Post*
This excellent biography offers a deeper, more rounded picture of
the writer's life, his rise to stardom, his fall and tragic final
days... At once entertaining and scholarly. The man himself would
be proud'
*The Lady*
Sturgis' attention to decadence allows readers to view Wilde's
post-prison years in a new light... [An] insightful biography'
*Volupte*
Very solid and complete biography
*The Dutch Review of Books*
A great read
*Edge Media Network*
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