A fascinating post, thank you. I knew little about Bosie's life after Wilde and on the basis of Douglas Murray's book he seems to have both changed and mellowed.
I wonder what it says of his times with Wilde. We know from other sources that his father was an arrogant, dreadful and much disliked man. Although elected to parliament he did not take his seat because as an atheist he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen. We also know that he was brimming with fury at the allegations, probably true, that his eldest son and heir was almost certainly homosexual and had had an affair with the bisexual Prime Minister Lord Rosebery with whom he had obtained a position in the government. When his heir was mysteriously killed with a bullet to his head (thought at one time to have been suicide) he then went after his youngest son and especially Wilde. That Bosie was also homosexual merely added to his fury.
Yet was it not Robert Ross, the teenage openly gay Canadian determined to meet Wilde, who basically turned him away from his wife and two sons and into his first homosexual relationship? I always thought that was relatively monogamous until Wilde met and became infatuated with the wild youth Bosie. For a while Wilde, Ross and Bosie hung out together. Wasn't it Bosie who then introduced him to the rent boys and male brothels that Queensberry's lawyers brought up in the second law suit? And wasn't it Bosie who basically encouraged Wilde to sue his father for libel in the first suit? Had Wilde not been such vain man, he might had realised the almost inevitable outcome when going against a total bigot like Queensberry.
Then wasn't Bosie's wife herself bisexual? He seems to have been a man with little joy in his life.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Armando
