Name: De Profundis
SKU: 58544541
Price: 582.00 TWD
Availability: InStock
Author: Oscar Wilde
ISBN: 9781511838955

Type

Physical Book

Author

Illustrated by

Publisher

Language

English

Pages

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

22.9x15.2x0.2 cm

Weight

0.06 kg.

ISBN13

9781511838955

Synopsis "De Profundis"

De Profundis (Latin: "from the depths") is a letter written by Oscar Wilde during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, to Lord Alfred Douglas. During its first half Wilde recounts their previous relationship and extravagant lifestyle which eventually led to Wilde's conviction and imprisonment for gross indecency. He indicts both Lord Alfred's vanity and his own weakness in acceding to those wishes. In the second half, Wilde charts his spiritual development in prison and identification with Jesus Christ, whom he characterises as a romantic, individualist artist. Wilde wrote the letter between January and March 1897, close to the end of his imprisonment. Contact had lapsed between Douglas and Wilde and the latter had suffered from his physical labour and emotional isolation; a new warden thought that writing might be more cathartic than prison labour. Wilde's work was closely supervised and he was not allowed to send the letter, but took it with him upon release, whereupon he entrusted the manuscript to an ex-lover, the journalist Robert Ross, with instructions to have two copies made: one to be sent to the author himself and the other to Douglas. Ross published the letter in 1905, five years after Wilde's death, giving it the title "De Profundis" from Psalm 130. It was an incomplete version, excised of its autobiographical elements; various editions gave more text until 1962 when the complete and correct version appeared in a volume of Wilde's letters.

Oscar Wilde

(Author)

View Author's Page

Oscar Wilde is considered one of the most prominent playwrights of late Victorian London. Additionally, he was a celebrity of the time due to his great and sharp wit. Today, he is remembered for his epigrams, his short stories, his plays, his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the tragedy of his imprisonment, followed by his premature death.

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