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Notable British Trials
The Trial of Oscar Wilde: From the shorthand reports
On 18th February 1895, the Marquess od Queensberry left a visiting card at the Albemarle Club on which he had written: 'the Oscar Wilde posing as a sodomite'. The accusation led to a series of three trials and the imprisonment of Wilde. This work has been compiled from the original trial transcripts.
152 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1948
About the author
Oscar Wilde
6,049 books40.3k followersOscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. 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). Wilde returned to drama, writing 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. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. 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). Wilde returned to drama, writing 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. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 17, 2024
H. Montgomery Hyde's The Trials of Oscar Wilde recreates the famous playwright's libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry, and his subsequent prosecution and imprisonment on charges of "gross indecency." Hyde, a legal historian and sometimes politician, briefly limns Wilde's career and public persona, as a brilliant, outrageous man who flaunted conventional morality while dazzling English society with his wit. Unfortunately, this proved his undoing, as his relationshipship with Lord Alfred Douglas led to his very public outing as a homosexual; first through a libel suit against Douglas's ferocious father, then through two criminal trials that laid bare Wilde's private life in embarrassing detail, followed by a prison term. Hyde's lively reconstruction of the case concedes that Wilde was his own worst enemy: he impetuously challenged Queensberry's denunciation of him as a "sodomite," forcing his own testimony under oath, in which he attempted to win the case through wit and insouciance - allowing Queensberry's brilliant attorney, Sir Edward Carson, to destroy him on cross examination. But Hyde (a staunch gay rights activist) demonstrates that no man, however arrogant or self-destructive, deserves to have their life destroyed over their personal traits; a man like Wilde is trapped into a hobson's choice between blackmail, imprisonment and public calumny by officially sanctioned bigotry. Hyde's book formed the basis for a popular 1960 film with Peter Finch and James Mason, which itself played a significant role in changing opinions on Britain's anti-sodomy laws. And while other accounts have been published since, his well-written exegesis of Wilde's downfall remains one of the best.
February 18, 2018
I had to read this book for one of my assignments at university which was about representations of Oscar Wilde in the 20th century. I originally wanted to just write about the 1960 film with Peter Finch portraying Wilde but seeing that the movie was based on Hyde's book, I decided to read it.
I really liked this book. It is itself a valuable primary source of understanding 20th century views and representations of Wilde. Hyde's attitude to Wilde's homosexuality was not one of acceptance but one of sympathy. The 20th century started a movement where homosexuals or 'inverts' as they were called were seen as suffers of the homosexual disease. To us, this still seems discriminatory but in the 20th century to see homosexuals as victims rather than as sinners was a very radical idea.
This was the first book that attempted to record how the trials of Oscar Wilde occurred. Hyde got his information from people who were at the trial, such as Lord Alfred Douglas and lawyers from Wilde's legal counsel.
I wouldn't recommend this book to people who simply want to read a narrative of the trials. Merlin Holland's (who is Wilde's grandson) book, The Irish Peacock and the Scarlet Marquess is a better book to read if you just want the facts of the trials.
Hyde's book is good for people interested in reading 20th century representations of Wilde.
I really liked this book. It is itself a valuable primary source of understanding 20th century views and representations of Wilde. Hyde's attitude to Wilde's homosexuality was not one of acceptance but one of sympathy. The 20th century started a movement where homosexuals or 'inverts' as they were called were seen as suffers of the homosexual disease. To us, this still seems discriminatory but in the 20th century to see homosexuals as victims rather than as sinners was a very radical idea.
This was the first book that attempted to record how the trials of Oscar Wilde occurred. Hyde got his information from people who were at the trial, such as Lord Alfred Douglas and lawyers from Wilde's legal counsel.
I wouldn't recommend this book to people who simply want to read a narrative of the trials. Merlin Holland's (who is Wilde's grandson) book, The Irish Peacock and the Scarlet Marquess is a better book to read if you just want the facts of the trials.
Hyde's book is good for people interested in reading 20th century representations of Wilde.
July 9, 2015
I wanted to like this book. I should have liked this book. I love Oscar Wilde. I love legal scandals, and as a (former!) attorney I thought I could really get into it. I've owned this book for 3-6 years and have tried to read it several times. I spent so much time in between attempts that I restarted it each time. Look, I didn't hate the book because I found rereading the same intro over and over again boring. I never remembered enough to have that sensation. In truth, I hated this book because it is boring. How can you make Oscar f&*#%ng Wilde boring? How can you make a triumvirate of court cases about defamation and homosexuality boring? I don't know! I just don't! Was it the small font? The huge blocks of paragraphs daring you to finish them before you can put in a bookmark? I hope not, and I've dealt with far worse from other books I've practically inhaled. I don't know why this book sucks so much. But I won't be putting it back on the shelf again to be attempted once again years from now. No, no, no, not again. Never again.
September 17, 2018
Transcripts of the three trials of Oscar Wilde with an in=depth introduction and analysis of the cases. The first, where he prosecuted Marquess Queensberry for libel; then the two subsequent ones where he was prosecuted for homosexual acts committed in private. The first trial sees Oscar's case collapse during the first speech of the defence, wherein it becomes amply clear that the defence would be in a position to prove that the statement made by Queensberry 'To Oscar Wilde, posing as a somdomite.' was factual rather than libellous.
We can rail against a legal system that can prosecute acts committed in private between consenting adults, but it becomes clear that Oscar brought this calamity onto himself - not by being a practicing homosexual, but rather by not comprehending how the legal system of the society he was a member of would grind him to dust.
We can rail against a legal system that can prosecute acts committed in private between consenting adults, but it becomes clear that Oscar brought this calamity onto himself - not by being a practicing homosexual, but rather by not comprehending how the legal system of the society he was a member of would grind him to dust.
April 6, 2025
Gripping and good for research
June 28, 2025
Audio. The audioversion is very well narrated.
January 12, 2026
historically interesting, a sign of its time.
April 26, 2011
From what I understand the Portrait of Dorian Gray was the only novel written by Oscar Wilde. It's an interesting novel - very moralistic.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews