Oscar Wilde: The Story of an Unhappy Friendship

Robert Sherard knew Oscar Wilde for twenty years. He was there at the height of fame and witnessed the devastating fall. This memoir, the first biography ever written about Wilde, is less a formal life story than an elegy for a friendship poisoned by public scandal and private betrayal. Sherard chronicles their years together in London and Paris, capturing the brilliant conversation, the reckless humor, and the terrible moment when Wilde's world collapsed around him. The book is haunted by what loyalty means when everyone else has fled. Sherard remained friends with Wilde even as society closed ranks against him. It offers intimate, unguarded glimpses of a man the world had decided to destroy. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Wilde not as a monument but as a human being: flawed, dazzling, and destroyed by the age that worshipped and then abandoned him.