The Marquess of Queensberry: Wilde's Nemesis - Hardcover

Stratmann, Linda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300173806 ISBN 13: 9780300173802

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2013

Synopsis

The Marquess of Queensberry is as famous for his role in the downfall of one of our greatest literary geniuses as he was for helping establish the rules for modern-day boxing. The trial and two-year imprisonment of Oscar Wilde, lover of Queensberry’s son, Lord Alfred Douglas, remains one of literary history’s great tragedies. However, Linda Stratmann's riveting biography of the Marquess paints a far more complex picture by drawing on new sources and unpublished letters. Throughout his life, Queensberry was emotionally damaged by a series of tragedies, and the events of the Wilde affair—told for the first time from the Marquess’s perspective—were directly linked to Queensberry’s personal crises. Through the retelling of pivotal events from Queensberry’s life—the death of his brother on the Matterhorn and his fruitless search for the body; the suicides of his father, brother, and eldest son—the book reveals a well-meaning man often stricken with a grief he found hard to express, who deserves our compassion.

About this title

About the Author

Linda Stratmann is the author of eleven books. She lives in London.

Reviews

*Starred Review* Considered the catalyst of Oscar Wilde’s downfall, John Sholto Douglas, ninth marquess of Queensberry (1844–1900), has been stigmatized as mad, homophobic, and otherwise execrable. Historical true-crime and mystery writer Stratmann’s enthralling biography questions such characterizations. Queensberry was quick to anger and a fight, but so were many other Douglases, before and since. He was vigorous in defense but not aggressive, which makes sense in view of his fame as a top amateur boxer, responsible for the rules that revived boxing as a sport and bear his name. He had advanced opinions—agnosticism, divorce reform, women’s suffrage—that he proclaimed boldly and unapologetically, and they, along with his dustups with offensive aristocrats and plebeians alike, were what led to his being called mad. Moreover, his life brimmed with woes—suicides, accidental deaths, alcoholism, marital discord and divorce, alienation from his children, and their prodigality—which severely strained his emotional and financial resources. When his son Alfred’s relationship with Wilde became a public scandal, he sought to end it—there were, after all, criminal consequences for homosexuality—by personally preventing the two from meeting again. When Wilde retaliated and lost his case, it speaks for Douglas that he didn’t press criminal charges against Wilde—the crown did. Far from evil, Queensberry as Stratmann presents him is definitely sympathetic, perhaps even admirable. --Ray Olson

Edition details

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300173806
• ISBN 13: 9780300173802
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336