Oscar: A Life

'The Book of the Year, perhaps of the decade, has to be Matthew Sturgis's Oscar' TLS, Books of the Year. NOMINATED FOR THE WOLFSON HISTORY PRIZE 2019. A SUNDAY TIMESBOOK OF THE YEAR. 'Simply the best modern biography of Wilde ... A terrific achievement'Evening Standard. 'Page-turning ... Vivid and desperately moving. However much you think you know Wilde, this book will absorb and entertain you'Sunday Times. 'Wonderfully exciting ... Sturgis's great achievement is to take on board his great flurry of contradictions'Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday. '[Sturgis] is a tremendous orchestrator of material, fastidious, unhurried, indefatigable'Observer. 'Oscar Wilde is more fashionable than ever ... Sturgis's account of the hearing at the Old Bailey is as gripping as it is grim'Guardian. 'The Book of the Year, perhaps of the decade, has to be Matthew Sturgis's Oscarwhich captures the wit, the love-ability, the dramatic genius, the insane self-destructiveness, the originality of Wilde ... [Sturgis] is the greatest chronicler of the 1890s we have ever had'TLS, Books of the Year. Oscar Wilde's life - like his wit - was alive with paradox. He was both an early exponent and a victim of 'celebrity culture': famous for being famous, he was lauded and ridiculed in equal measure. His achievements were frequently downplayed, his successes resented.