There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. On his release, he left immediately for France, and never returned to Ireland or Britain. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. After two more trials he was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897.
OSCAR WILDE GAY BOOK TRIAL
The libel trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency with men. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.Īt the height of his fame and success, while The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) was still being performed in London, Wilde prosecuted the Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. He wrote Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. The opportunity to construct aesthetic details precisely, and combine them with larger social themes, drew Wilde to write drama.
OSCAR WILDE GAY BOOK SERIES
At the turn of the 1890s he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.Īs a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art" and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. At university, he read Greats he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. In his youth Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. NOTE: Names above in bold indicate LGBT people.Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. Dolkart, project director, with additional content by Ethan Brown, project consultant (November 2017 last revised July 2022). Citing a sharp decline in sales following the 2008 financial crisis and increasing competition from online book sellers, Brinster closed the shop on March 29, 2009.Įntry by Andrew S. Kim Brinster, the shop’s longtime manager, bought the business in 2006. He sold the shop in 1993, just before he died of stomach cancer. In 1992, Rodwell received a Lambda Literary Award for Publisher’s Service, in recognition of his pioneering efforts in creating a bookstore for the LGBT community. For the next five years, until 1985, the Collective met in each other’s apartments and ultimately published three journals. Crusor posted a flyer in the store that called for a collective to be formed to publish the work of Black gay writers and artists. In 1980, musician and bookshop co-manager Fred Carl, activist Isaac Jackson, and architecture student Anthony Q. According to Selected Letters of Oscar Wilde, the nearly 46-year-old playwright had an affair with a 15-year-old while he lived in Sicily during the last seven months of his life. For example, Janine Utell relates how Alison Bechdel discovered a trove of gay and lesbian comic books at the store which, as Bechdel noted, allowed her “to apprehend the rich, transformational quality of lesbian experience and get it down on the page” in such seminal graphic works as Dykes to Watch Out For (beginning in 1983) and Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006), which later became the Tony Award-winning musical Fun Home (2013). The store provided a relaxed atmosphere for LGBT people who were struggling with their identity and also was an inspiration to many visitors. Gay rights activist and photojournalist, Kay Lahusen, also worked here for a time. Rodwell hosted book signing and meet-the-author events with Tennessee Williams, Rita Mae Brown, Janis Ian, Patricia Neil Warren, Christopher Isherwood, Harvey Fierstein, and many other LGBT authors. Nonetheless, the bookstore remained an important fixture in the LGBT community, stocking an ever-increasing number of LGBT books, periodicals, and ephemera. The store’s public presence also meant that it was subjected to vandalism, including a rock thrown through one of the plate-glass windows.
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