De Profundis

Published to mark the 125th anniversary of the beginning of Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment this striking edition is newly introduced by Patti Smith, and illustrated with images from the family archive. Sentenced to two years’ hard labour for his homosexual relations, Wilde plummeted from the heights of London society to bankruptcy, incarceration and indignity. His fall from grace was played out in a very public trial and his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) became fodder for the popular press and gossipmongers. Penned in 1897, toward the end of his internment, De Profundis is one of the greatest love letters ever written. However, it is far more than a passionate entreaty: it charts Wilde’s humiliating downfall, the rejection of his indulgent lifestyle and a new religious awareness.

Newly commissioned for this edition, Patti Smith’s introduction is a love letter to Wilde as affecting and heartfelt as the book itself. As well as recounting her lifelong love of Wilde’s work, it is a lyrical ode to the senseless incarceration of a genius. Composed in the Parisian hotel where Wilde spent the final days of his life, its poignancy is heightened by the hindsight of a century.