Carlyle and the Open Secret of His Life Book

Bosie Douglas, well known for his role in Oscar Wilde's downfall, tends to be villainized by biographers and it's not difficult to understand why. Even in his own version of events he comes across as arrogant and snobbish. He was a self-confessed anti-Semitic whose preferred hobbies appeared to be gambling, suing people and being sued in return. It's also interesting that a man who claims to have so much merit as an artist was also so self-aware of the fact that people's interest in him largely revolved around his connection with Oscar, to the extent that even his own autobiography has Oscar's name in the title.

I'll be honest that I was often bored when reading this. The most interesting part of the book is the middle, when he recounts his involvement with Oscar and his own version of events. However, because Bosie outlived Oscar by quite a large margin, the last 40% of the book barely mentions him at all except to make snide comments or to mention that Oscar's name always seemed to come up in court whenever he was in the witness-box. Because of this, the last section really drags. I'm not even going to pretend I was interested in the chapters where he goes into detail about his time at the races and all the money he lost and won. The chapters about his wife are a little more interesting, but then we switch to a detailed account of the many court cases Bosie was involved in, and once again the book becomes monotonous. I also sensed he was running out of steam by the end, because his most notable legal case - the one involving Winston Churchill, aka the only one that's particularly interesting - is glossed over pretty quickly, probably because Bosie lost. After that he trails off into a pretty dismal ending in which he attempts to gloss over the fact that he'd basically alienated everyone at this point. By the time of his death, he was penniless and alone, and it's hard to say he didn't deserve it.

His arrogance is undeniable, but I actually think that was my favourite thing about the book. I couldn't help but laugh at how unapologetically up himself Bosie was, and I highlighted dozens of quotes where he extolls his own virtues with no self-consciousness whatsoever: his attractiveness, his intelligence, his artistic talent, his sense of humour. If there was anyone Bosie was truly in love with, it was undoubtedly himself. Here are some of my favourites:

"I have a stack of George Wyndham's letters in my possession. I offered them to those who were compiling a collection of his letters, but they did not appear to want them. It is rather amusing, because in a hundred, or even fifty, years they will be worth more than all of his other letters put together, just because they were written to me."

"There can be no object in pretending that I was not rather exceptionally good looking"

"I have no doubt that some of my critics will say that I ought not to have chosen letters which make flattering references to my personal appearance. My answer is twofold. In the first place, I cannot choose other letters which are free from such a reference, for the simple reason that they do not exist."

If you're interested in Wilde, this is probably worth the read just for a fresh perspective, but I can't pretend it clears the waters at all. The fact of the matter is that we're unlikely to know the whole truth of what happened - there are too many lies and obfuscations and way too much destroyed evidence - but this was an interesting read even so.