Oscar Wilde: the Downfall of a Decadent

11 - 12 July 2014

To adapt one of his own well-known sayings, Oscar Wilde’s downfall was far from pure and never simple. In this informal talk Merlin Holland, his only grandson, questions whether it was Wilde’s homosexuality alone which brought him down. From the storm of protest engendered by the publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray to the banning of Salomé from the stage, he suggests that the motives for destroying Wilde were far more complicated than at first seem apparent.