The Illustrated Letters of Oscar Wilde

With his sharp wit and dramatic life, Oscar Wilde is one of the most compelling and entertaining writers of all time. Here, he comes alive through excerpts drawn from private letters, poems, plays, stories, and quotations. Featuring illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley, Toulouse Lautrec, James Whistler, and Max Beerbohm, among others, this unique biography covers Wilde's relationships with key writers and artists of the period, including Ruskin, Charles Ricketts, and Lillie Langtry. It details Wilde's ruin after his trial for indecency; the profundity of his writing from prison and exile form an epitaph, not only to his own life, but also for an era.