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After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal
THE DEFINITIVE STUDY OF OSCAR WILDE'S POSTHUMOUS REPUTATION, WRITTEN BY WILDE'S ONLY GRANDSON
"A fascinating sweep through a hundred years from Wilde's death to now."—Stephen Fry
"Gripping"—The Times
"Wilde's afterlife remains almost as rich and entertaining as his life."—The Guardian
Oscar Wilde died in November 1900, exiled in Paris and exhausted by scandal and prison life. The details of his life in the limelight are well known; what have regularly been ignored are the reverberations of the scandal for decades after his death.
With pathos, humour, and his grandfather's signature wit, Holland charts the extraordinary afterlife of the legendary writer and thinker, and traces the dramatic fluctuations in Wilde's posthumous reputation over the past 125 years. A true feat of storytelling and scholarship, After Oscar tells the story of Oscar's wife Constance and his sons Cyril and Vyvyan; his lovers, friends, and enemies; the afterlife of De Profundis; sightings from beyond the grave; the fate of the Wilde estate; and Oscar's contemporary status as a gay icon.
One of the most important works on Wilde in over fifty years, After Oscar exposes decades of sensationalist conjecture surrounding the Wilde family, and documents a century of homophobia within the British establishment. Illuminating and heartbreaking, Holland has written a book that will amuse, infuriate, fascinate, and shock. Readers beware—you're in for a Wilde ride.
"A fascinating sweep through a hundred years from Wilde's death to now."—Stephen Fry
"Gripping"—The Times
"Wilde's afterlife remains almost as rich and entertaining as his life."—The Guardian
Oscar Wilde died in November 1900, exiled in Paris and exhausted by scandal and prison life. The details of his life in the limelight are well known; what have regularly been ignored are the reverberations of the scandal for decades after his death.
With pathos, humour, and his grandfather's signature wit, Holland charts the extraordinary afterlife of the legendary writer and thinker, and traces the dramatic fluctuations in Wilde's posthumous reputation over the past 125 years. A true feat of storytelling and scholarship, After Oscar tells the story of Oscar's wife Constance and his sons Cyril and Vyvyan; his lovers, friends, and enemies; the afterlife of De Profundis; sightings from beyond the grave; the fate of the Wilde estate; and Oscar's contemporary status as a gay icon.
One of the most important works on Wilde in over fifty years, After Oscar exposes decades of sensationalist conjecture surrounding the Wilde family, and documents a century of homophobia within the British establishment. Illuminating and heartbreaking, Holland has written a book that will amuse, infuriate, fascinate, and shock. Readers beware—you're in for a Wilde ride.
- GenresNonfiction
764 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 16, 2025
6 people are currently reading
176 people want to read
About the author
Merlin Holland
33 books45 followersChristopher Merlin Vyvyan Holland is a British biographer and editor. He is the only grandchild of Oscar Wilde, whose life he has researched and written about extensively.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 18, 2025
It's early days - I'm only 150 pages in - but there's an obvious problem with this book: the writing. The sentences are dense, somewhat cluttered and often require repeated reading. What is needed is a good editor. Someone to tidy up the grammar and edit out the repetitions. And maybe tidy up the chronology - there's a lot of zipping backwards and forwards. Holland isn't a bad writer, but he lacks the crispness and elegance of his grandfather's prose. Most writers do. That aside, there's a lot of interesting information in the book. And Holland's personal insights add a new angle. One thing that remains constant, whoever's telling the story, is Alfred Douglas' awfulness. Was there anything worthwhile about the man? He obviously realised that history was - quite rightly - going to judge him harshly and tried to counter it. When he couldn't, he did what he always did - lost his temper and blamed everyone else. Turning his back on Wilde was him turning his back on posterity. Holland puts up a sort of defence - calling criticisms of Douglas 'simplistic' - but then hammers the final nails in by writing - at length - about Douglas' odious behaviour right up to his death in 1945. The real victim - if that is the right word - is Vyvyan, who after Cyril's death in 1915, had to deal with the Wilde legacy all by himself. All the bootlegs, plagiarisms, court cases, newspaper attention, financial difficulties and skeletons in cupboards. Conflicted, conned and condemned. Holland documents it all. And in doing so produces an account that is filled with understanding and humanity.
I've just listened to a talk by Holland, in which he says, because he's criticising other writers on Wilde, he better get things right. Otherwise his mistakes will be pointed out. Well, I haven't written about Wilde, but there are a lot of errors in this book - names spelt incorrectly, wrong dates (1997 instead of 1897), missing words. It doesn't detract from the overall excellence, but the book really needs a good edit.
This is a fascinating, highly-detailed, moving book, which would've got a 5-star from me but for all the writing errors. Fix these and it'd be a fantastic read. I found Holland's summing up at the end very poignant. It sounds great being Oscar Wilde's grandson, but, boy, does it come with a lot of baggage. All in all, I think Holland has handled it extremely well.
I've just listened to a talk by Holland, in which he says, because he's criticising other writers on Wilde, he better get things right. Otherwise his mistakes will be pointed out. Well, I haven't written about Wilde, but there are a lot of errors in this book - names spelt incorrectly, wrong dates (1997 instead of 1897), missing words. It doesn't detract from the overall excellence, but the book really needs a good edit.
This is a fascinating, highly-detailed, moving book, which would've got a 5-star from me but for all the writing errors. Fix these and it'd be a fantastic read. I found Holland's summing up at the end very poignant. It sounds great being Oscar Wilde's grandson, but, boy, does it come with a lot of baggage. All in all, I think Holland has handled it extremely well.
October 16, 2025
What a magnificent achievement. Oscar Wilde's grandson, Merlin Holland, has written a book that debunks the myths surrounding Wilde's life and works. In doing so, he also details what it's like to live in the aftermath of such an infamous writer. What is it like to manoeuvre through life when your family history is a fantasy created by others? Holland writes that Wilde was once described as a 'genius living in a superficial fantasy world'. Holland does an excellent job of exploring the different Oscar Wildes, and how those different 'versions' were created for private and public consumption.
Holland also details just how difficult it is to be the son of such an infamous man, and how his infamy impacted Holland's father, Vyvyan. Vyvyan and his brother Cyril were kept from Oscar Wilde and each other in an attempt to protect them from the taint of association after the trial. It's this idea of shame that runs throughout the book: the shame of sexuality, the shame of the Wilde name, the shame of never knowing their father, etc. Holland again weaves this story in such an empathetic and engrossing way.
This book is not only for Oscar Wilde fans, but for social historians who want to learn about the aftermath of Wilde's trial. Most of us know what happened to Wilde, but this time Holland allows us to see the damage that bigotry and hypocrisy inflicted upon the wider canvas of society.
Holland also details just how difficult it is to be the son of such an infamous man, and how his infamy impacted Holland's father, Vyvyan. Vyvyan and his brother Cyril were kept from Oscar Wilde and each other in an attempt to protect them from the taint of association after the trial. It's this idea of shame that runs throughout the book: the shame of sexuality, the shame of the Wilde name, the shame of never knowing their father, etc. Holland again weaves this story in such an empathetic and engrossing way.
This book is not only for Oscar Wilde fans, but for social historians who want to learn about the aftermath of Wilde's trial. Most of us know what happened to Wilde, but this time Holland allows us to see the damage that bigotry and hypocrisy inflicted upon the wider canvas of society.
October 7, 2025
TOTAL ABSOLUTE MAGIC ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
January 18, 2026
A wonderful, honest and very personal book detailing all the different impacts Oscar’s ruin had on his family down the decades told in such readable style by his grandson who, amazingly, is only 80 years old. I raced through the 605 pages. It’s desperately sad in places, funny in others, exasperating in others - never dull. Holland neither reveres nor despises his grandfather and is painstaking in his quest for truth.
The one thing that drove me potty however is the abominable copy-editing job - if it was ever copy-edited at all. Misplaced apostrophes all over the place (“the Wilde’s”, for non-possessive plural…), words missing, words mis-spelled (discretely when it clearly should have been discreetly, for example), missing punctuation all together (absence of full stops!). It was a disgraceful job on a great book!
The one thing that drove me potty however is the abominable copy-editing job - if it was ever copy-edited at all. Misplaced apostrophes all over the place (“the Wilde’s”, for non-possessive plural…), words missing, words mis-spelled (discretely when it clearly should have been discreetly, for example), missing punctuation all together (absence of full stops!). It was a disgraceful job on a great book!
January 3, 2026
Having read the print reviews, I was greatly looking forward to diving into this door stopper of a book, but was sadly disappointed. Merlin is clearly a man who finds little in life to his entire satisfaction and the book becomes a bit of a one-note dirge of dissatisfaction. The endless disagreements over authenticity and copyright would benefit from being edited down and whilst the author may consider himself to be more clear sighted about Wilde and his life journey, clearly much about his grandfather still sits uncomfortably with him. The advance publicity vastly oversells the significance of this book
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews