![]() In his opening speech in defense of Queensberry, Carson announced that he would call to the witness box several young men known to Wilde. To the surprise of many, the prosecution closed its case without calling Lord Alfred Douglas as a witness. Carson queried why Wilde had mentioned that at all. When Carson asked Wilde if he had kissed a young man who was just sixteen years old at the time, Wilde replied, “Oh, dear no! He was a peculiarly plain boy.” Wilde was unable to answer Carson’s further questions demanding to know if the only reason Wilde hadn’t kissed him was that he was ugly. Carson told the court that some of the recipients were not “intellectual treats” but newspaper sellers, valets, and even barely literate unemployed young men. The jury was shown a number of gifts that Wilde had given to young men. However, Wilde became more uncomfortable when Carson started to ask him about his personal relationships. Press coverage of Oscar Wilde’s first criminal trial, April 1895, via British Library, London The views of Philistines on art are incalculably stupid.” Wilde remained somewhat flippant on the stand: when reminded that The Picture of Dorian Gray contained the sentiment that “There is no such thing as an immoral work … books are well written or badly written,” Wilde declared that Dorian Gray could only be considered a perverted book by “brutes and illiterates. The literary part included references to Wilde’s own letters and his aesthetic movement works The Picture of Dorian Gray and Phrases and Philosophies for Use of the Young. His cross-examination focused on Wilde’s written words as well as his actions. Wilde is a poet … and is prepared to produce anywhere as the expression of true poetic feeling.” When Wilde took the stand, he declared that there was no truth in any of Queensberry’s accusations.Īfter lunch, Queensberry’s attorney Edward Carson, who had been a rival of Wilde’s since they were at Trinity College Dublin together, cross-examined Wilde. The letter contained phrases such as “red rose-leaf lips of yours,” “madness of kisses,” and “your slim gilt soul.” Clarke explained that the words “may appear extravagant to those in the habit of writing commercial correspondence … but Mr. In the prosecution’s opening statement, Wilde’s attorney, Clarke, attempted to explain away a letter Wilde had written to Douglas. The Picture of Dorian Gray serialized in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, 1890, via British Library, London Oscar Wilde’s first appearance at the Old Bailey occurred on April 3, 1895, when he testified against Queensberry for calling him a “sodomite.” They even encouraged him to leave the country to continue his writing in France, where attitudes towards homosexuality were more tolerant. Prior to the libel trial, friends of Wilde’s, including the playwright George Bernard Shaw and Frank Harris, tried to persuade Wilde to drop the case. Wilde’s Attempt to Sue Queensberry Resulted In a Warrant For Wilde’s Arrest He even warned hotel and restaurant managers that they would be beaten if he ever discovered Wilde and his son on their premises.Ģ. Queensberry also turned up at Wilde’s house with a prize-fighter. Concerned about his son’s relationship with Wilde, by early 1894, Queensberry had threatened to disown his son if his relationship with Wilde continued. Wilde’s troubles truly began not as a result of this attempted blackmail but by the actions of Lord Alfred Douglas’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry. Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, 1893, via muyhistoria.es Two other blackmailers received smaller sums of money for the return of the remaining letters. In a pocket of the suit, Wood discovered compromising letters which Wood then used to blackmail Wilde for the (back then) not insignificant sum of £35. While still a student at Oxford, Douglas gave an old suit to a more impoverished friend, Alfred Wood. Wilde was by then a well-known literary figure and leader of the aesthetic movement, which believed in “ art for art’s sake.” Wilde and Douglas often dined together, stayed in houses and hotels together, and Douglas was the recipient of several gifts from Wilde Wilde even wrote a sonnet about Douglas. Wilde’s legal troubles began four years earlier when, at the age of 38, he met 22-year-old Lord Alfred Douglas, a student at Oxford. Oscar Wilde’s first trial took place at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, also known as the Old Bailey, on April 3, 1895. Oscar Wilde Was On the Prosecution Side In the First Trial
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