(This new resource from the a private company Gale-Cengage Learning looks promising; at least according to the populist blurb in the Telegraph via the Melbourne Age. Strange how the article fails to mention that it was a homophobic ‘scandal’ and fails to do justice to the true nature of Wild’s and Bosie’s relationship. There is a self-reflective lenz that we probably need to reflect upon before we judge this tit-bit of history).
OSCAR Wilde’s clandestine relationship with the young Lord Alfred Douglas resulted in scandal and his eventual imprisonment. Now, the original letters laying bare the playwright’s love for the young “Bosie” are to be made available to the public for the first time.
The handwritten intimate correspondence is among 600,000 pages of British literary manuscripts and original documentation being put online — along with such items as early drafts of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, manuscripts by Robert Burns and Walter Scott and letters written by Charlotte Bronte.
In one letter to Bosie, dated 1894, Wilde writes: “My own dear boy — It’s really absurd — I can’t live without you … London is a desert without your dainty feet … but I have no words for how I love you — Oscar.” (link)
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