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Oscar Wilde's Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century
Oscar Wilde's Last Stand Decadence Conspiracy and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century Author:Philip Hoare "The extraordinary story so brilliantly and probingly documented in 'Oscar Wilde's Last Stand' shows how, eighteen years after his death, his name could still rouse intense passions. Philip Hoare painstakingly recreates the detailed history of the once-notorious Maud Allan case--in which the famous dancer launched an action against the maverick ... more »right-wing demagogue Noel Pemberton Billing MP for libellous remarks concerning her performance in the English premiere of Wilde's 'Salome.' It is the triumph of this book that in chronicling everything that led up to it, Hoare shows the progress of the struggle between those who espoused what Wilde stood for and those who wished to destroy it, revealing that this struggle was in a sense the central struggle of European civilization in the early part of the century. The court case becomes a prism through which Hoare examines those larger issues--although his account of the trial itself and its personalities is both astonishing and hilarious."