foxwrapped's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent book. A very personal meditation from a gay Londoner writing in the 1980s on Oscar Wilde and various Victorian Uranians. The author never pretends to be an objective historian or biographer, only insists that he is an obsessive fan who has spent considerable time loving/hating someone he can only know through images and text. As a result I don't think I have ever read anything about lives lived 100+ years ago that felt so immediately relevant. Constructed out of bits of history, 80s history included, and quotes from trials and poetry and letters, fragmented but it glitters. He really must have wanted Oscar to be proud of his prose.
kjcharles's review
4.0
Very good indeeed. Really interesting meditation on gay life and identity with some good history of London's gay scene and the Wilde scandal. Beautifully written, of course.
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