More Adey suddenly appeared in the story of Oscar Wilde in 1895, at which point he became an essential member of Wilde’s inner circle, along with Robert Ross charged by Wilde with looking after his affairs while he was in prison. He was asked by Lady Queensberry to look after Douglas during that time and then it was Adey who met Wilde at the gates of Pentonville and accompanied him to France.
A companion to Ross for about thirty years; an art critic, editor, translator and gallery administrator, Adey was a friend to many, often negotiating an uneasy peace between Ross and Douglas. But almost nothing has been known about his life before he became friends with Wilde, and his achievements after Wilde’s death have largely been forgotten. The last seventeen years of his life were spent in an asylum separated from his friends and family. This book attempts to secure Adey’s proper place in the Wildean firmament.