Prison Diary

Author: Oscar Wilde
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2000-10-01
Features: A whisper of a poet's soul, a final cry of an aesthete, a collection of books that has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Wilde's comedies still make audiences in London roar with laughter a century later. His witty sayings are still frequently quoted, bringing a knowing smile and feeling timeless. For a hundred years, his biographies have continuously appeared, guiding curious readers from Dublin to Oxford, from London to Paris, to revisit the real and illusory world of this Irish genius. This Irish peacock, who claimed to possess nothing but genius, was still immersed in the world of flowers and applause, clever conversation, and the scent of lilies, even as he wrung coarse rope in prison and wiped his tears to write this long letter to his homosexual friend, Douglas. He had tasted the sweet fruits of life, had flown freely—or believed he was flying—among the spirits in the heavens, and now he knew that his genius could also bring him a spiritual hell. Reading such works may not bring admiration for his genius, but rather sympathy for a true genius, and a deeper understanding of the capricious nature of the Fates. Wilde—the martyr of beauty—is a symbol of the fate of beauty in the dark ages of the spirit. This book collects the essence of Wilde's life letters, reflecting his fall from the "Happy Prince" to the "Sorrowful Prince," and can be read as an autobiography in which Wilde defends aesthetic life and art, offering a bittersweet enjoyment of beauty: mourning Wilde, mourning the era that lacks beauty but rejects it, and mourning the fate of beauty that has been destroyed in history or will be in the future.