De profundis and other prison writings
By Oscar Wilde

De Profundis and Other Prison Writingsand is a new selection of Oscar Wilde's prison letters and poetry in Penguin Classics, edited and introduced by Colm Tóibín.At the start of 1895, Oscar Wilde was the toast of London, widely feted for his most recent stage success,and An Ideal Husband. But by May of the same year, Wilde was in Reading prison sentenced to hard labour. 'De Profundis' is an epistolic account of Oscar Wilde's spiritual journey while in prison, and describes his new, shocking conviction that 'the supreme vice is shallowness'. This edition also includes further letters to his wife, his friends, the Home Secretary, newspaper editors and his lover Lord Alfred Douglas - Bosie - himself, as well as 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol', the heart-rending poem about a man sentenced to hang for the murder of the woman he loved.This Penguin edition is based on the definitive Complete Letters, edited by Wilde's grandson Merlin Holland. Colm Tóibín's introduction explores Wilde's duality in love, politics and literature. This edition also includes notes on the text and suggested further reading.Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin. His three volumes of short fiction,and The Happy Prince,and Lord Arthur Savile's Crimeand andand A House of Pomegranates,and together with his only novel,and The Picture of Dorian Gray, won him a reputation as a writer with an original talent, a reputation enhanced by the phenomenal success of his society comedies -and Lady Windermere's Fan,and A Woman of No Importance,and An Ideal Husbandand andand The Importance of Being Earnest.Colm Tóibín is the author of five novels, includingand The Blackwater Lightshipand andand The Master, and a collection of stories,and Mothers and Sons. His essay collectionand Love in a Dark Time: Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodovarand appeared in 2002. He is the editor ofand The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction.