Oscar Wilde and His Circle Book

"Wilde was a pioneer of celebrity whose contributions to intellectual and artistic life swiftly secured him a place in high society. His friends and contemporaries included Aubrey Beardsley, Lillie Langtry, James McNeill Whistler, Sir Max Beerbohm and Ada Leverson, but Wilde is perhaps best known for the circumstances of his love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas ('Bosie'). The subsequent libel case against Bosie's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, and Wilde's own tragic imprisonment made him a social exile and was to be his downfall. In this perceptive appraisal of Wilde and his circle, Simon Callow captures the spirit of one of Britain's most celebrated, but ultimately tragic, literary figures."--BOOK JACKET.