Oscar: A Life (Paperback)

'However much you think you know about Wilde, this book will absorb and entertain you. It thickens the texture of every aspect of his unique life - dazzling, decadent and doomed.' - Sunday Times

'A perfectly diligent book, and tells new readers all they possibly need to know about Wilde and his world.' - The Times

'Authoritative, magnificently researched.' - Spectator

'Matthew Sturgis uses new letters and a libel trial transcript to give a fuller picture of Oscar Wilde's dazzling rise and tragic fall ... He is a tremendous orchestrator of material, fastidious, unhurried, indefatigable' Observer

'Oscar Wilde is more fashionable than ever, and his demise still makes for a gripping read ... Sturgis's account is fuller and in some ways more reliable [than Richard Ellmann's biography] ... Sturgis's account of the hearing at the Old Bailey is as gripping as it is grim' Guardian

'[Sturgis's biography] is the first major attempt since that of Richard Ellman some 30 years ago, and it's much better ... This is simply the best modern biography of Wilde ... A terrific achievement.' - Evening Standard

'The Book of the Year, perhaps of the decade ... 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 Book of the Year.

'Astute in its judgements and offers a sharp and detailed grasp of the period and an appreciation of Wilde's ambiguities.' - Irish Times, Books of the Year, Colm Toibin

'The first major biography of the great Oscar Wilde in 30 years offers a sumptuous insight into the life of the famous - and infamous - fin de siecle playwright, author and poet.' - Mail on Sunday, Books of the Year, Craig Brown

'Like Churchill, Oscar Wilde [...] is one of those people who never seem to stop inspiring outstanding biographies, and Oscar: A Life by Matthew Sturgis is one of the best, as well as the latest, of a long line.' - Sunday Telegraph

'A first rate biography.' - Sunday Express, Books of the Year

'This book provides not only a comprehensive record of [Wilde's] activities, friendships and financial affairs, but also a powerful sense of what it was actually like to know him ... This is undoubtedly the most comprehensive, reliable and clear-sighted study of Wilde ever likely to be written.' - Dublin Sunday Business Post