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... the real tragedies of life
occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt
us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence,
their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack
of style.
- Oscar Wilde,
The Picture
of Dorian Gray (1890), Ch. 8
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In the months of April and May, 1895, England's foremost
playwright - Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde - featured
in three successive trials in consecutive sessions of the Central
Criminal Courts. Just weeks earlier, his greatest dramatic
creation, The Importance of Being Earnest, had experienced a
tumultuously successful opening in the West End. But the
dramas which were to unfold, just a few blocks away at the Old
Bailey, amounted to a theatrical tragedy which even the greatest
playwright would not have dared to invent.
Wilde and "Bosie" Douglas
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Really, if the lower orders don't set us a good example,
what on earth is the use of them
?
- Oscar Wilde,
The Importance
of Being Earnest (1895), Act I
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Wilde's problems arose out of his association with Lord Alfred
("Bosie") Douglas, a younger son of the Marquess of Queensberry.
In his Autobiography, published in 1929, Bosie confessed
that there occurred between him and Wilde "familiarities" of
the kind "which not infrequently take place among boys at English
public schools"; but that, "of the sin which takes its name
from one of the cities of the Plain there never was the slightest
question". They both shared an interest in young men of
a lower social order - in the argot of today's gay community,
"rough trade" - and co-operated with one another in seeking
out opportunities to gratify that particular interest.
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| Oscar
Wilde and Lord Alfred ("Bosie") Douglas
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The first sign of trouble came in 1893, when certain letters
written by Wilde to Douglas fell into the hands of Alfred Wood,
an unemployed clerk whose income appears to have derived from
prostituting himself through a male brothel conducted by Alfred
Taylor, and by some small-time blackmail. Wood claimed
that he had found the letters in the pockets of an old suit
of clothes given to him by Bosie Douglas. This implausible
story only begs the question as to the nature of the relationship
between Wood and Douglas, by which the former obtained access
to the latter's rooms and clothing. In a letter which
Wilde wrote to Douglas from prison, subsequently published as
De Profundis, Wilde referred to an earlier attempt by Wood to
blackmail Douglas on account of some improprieties which occurred
between Douglas and Wood at Oxford. Both Wilde's and Wood's
evidence confirmed that it was Douglas who introduced them to
one another.
Wood, with confederates named Allen and Clibborn - apparently
more experienced blackmailers - attempted to extort payment
from Wilde for the return of the letters, but (if Wilde's version
is to be believed) were only modestly successful. In evidence,
Wilde included this account of his interview with the blackmailer
Allen:
I said,
'I suppose you have come about my beautiful letter to Lord Alfred
Douglas. If you had not been so foolish as to send a copy
of it to Mr. Beerbohm Tree, I would gladly have paid you a very
large sum of money for the letter, as I consider it to be a
work of art.' He said, 'A very curious construction can
be put on that letter'. I said in reply, 'Art is rarely
intelligible to the criminal classes.' He said, 'A man
offered me £60 for it'. I said to him, 'If you take my
advice you will go to that man and sell my letter to him for
£60. I myself have never received so large a sum for any
prose work of that length; but I am glad to find that there
is some one in England who considers a letter of mine worth
£60.' He was somewhat taken aback by my manner, perhaps,
and said, 'The man is out of town'. I replied, 'He is
sure to come back'. And I advised him to get the £60.
He then changed his manner a little, saying that he had
not a single penny, and that he had been on many occasions trying
to find me. I said that I could not guarantee his cab
expenses, but that I would gladly give him half-a-sovereign.
He took the money and went away.
After Allen's unsuccessful attempt to extort a substantial
payment, Clibborn made a further foray at Wilde's house. As
Wilde described the encounter in his evidence:
I went out
to him and said, 'I cannot bother any more about this matter'.
He produced the letter out of his pocket, saying, 'Allen
has asked me to give it back to you'. I did not take it
immediately, but asked: 'Why does Allen give me back this letter?'
He said, 'Well, he says that you were kind to him, and
that there is no use trying to "rent" you as you only laugh
at us'. [The word "rent", in this context, was a contemporary
slang term for blackmail.] I took the letter and said,
'I will accept it back, and you can thank Allen from me for
all the anxiety he has shown about it'. I looked at the
letter, and saw that it was extremely soiled. I said to
him, 'I think it is quite unpardonable that better care was
not taken of this original manuscript of mine'. He said
he was very sorry, but it had been in so many hands. I
gave him half-a-sovereign, and then said, 'I am afraid you are
leading a wonderfully wicked life'. He said, 'There is
good and bad in every one of us'. I told him he was a
born philosopher, and then he left.
In fact, the blackmail cost Wilde rather more than two half-sovereigns:
he made a further payment to Wood - £20, by his own account,
or £35, according to Wood's version - in either event, a sizeable
sum of money at a time when 10 shillings (one-half of a pound)
represented a working man's weekly wage. In evidence,
both Wilde and Wood maintained that this payment was not a result
of blackmail, but merely an act of kindness to assist Wood to
start a new life in America - no doubt a convenient fiction,
as it was in neither party's interests to admit the true character
of the payment.
Although the blackmail attempt did not cost Wilde very dearly
in financial terms, it had the result that scandal started to
spread. Wood's confederates produced copies of the apparently
compromising letters, and circulated them amongst Wilde's theatrical
and literary colleagues - including one copy which went to the
actor-manager, Beerbohm Tree, who was then producing A Women
of No Importance at the Haymarket Theatre. Another copy
apparently came to the attention of Bosie's father, the Marquess.
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Little boys should be obscene
and not heard.
- Oscar Wilde,
(attributed)
I never play cricket. It
requires one to assume such indecent postures.
- Oscar Wilde,
(attributed)
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