To Robert Ross, 19 & 21 June

This fourth collection of the correspondence of Oscar Wilde includes the letters Wilde wrote while living in Berneval, in the months after his release from prison, and in Naples, where he shared a villa with his former lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. In a long letter to the editor of the Daily Chronicle, Wilde describes the cruelties of prison life. At this time Wilde was writing The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and the poem is a frequent topic in his letters to his friend, Robert Ross, and publisher, Leonard Smithers. The letters, some of which have been excerpted or redacted, are sourced from auction catalogues, biographies, collections of letters to Douglas and Ross, and other texts in the public domain. For a complete collection of Wilde's letters, please see "The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde," (2000) edited by Merlin Holland and Rupert Hart-Davis. - Summary by Rob Marland

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To Robert Ross, 19 & 21 June

To Robert Ross, 19 & 21 June