The Marquess of Queensberry: Wilde's Nemesis

Description

The Marquess of Queensberry is as famous for his role in the downfall of one of our greatest literary geniuses as he was for helping establish the rules for modern-day boxing. The trial and two-year imprisonment of Oscar Wilde, lover of Queensberry’s son, Lord Alfred Douglas, remains one of literary history’s great tragedies. However, Linda Stratmann's riveting biography of the Marquess paints a far more complex picture by drawing on new sources and unpublished letters. Throughout his life, Queensberry was emotionally damaged by a series of tragedies, and the events of the Wilde affair—told for the first time from the Marquess’s perspective—were directly linked to Queensberry’s personal crises. Through the retelling of pivotal events from Queensberry’s life—the death of his brother on the Matterhorn and his fruitless search for the body; the suicides of his father, brother, and eldest son—the book reveals a well-meaning man often stricken with a grief he found hard to express, who deserves our compassion. Contents Illustrations Author’s Note Acknowledgements Queensberry Family Trees Introduction: The Card CHAPTER 1. Son and Heir CHAPTER 2. The Queensberry Inheritance CHAPTER 3. The Young Gentleman CHAPTER 4. Night on a Mountain CHAPTER 5. ‘He Thought He Loved’ CHAPTER 6. The Game and Sporting Lord CHAPTER 7. Original Notions CHAPTER 8. Judged by his Peers CHAPTER 9. An Undercurrent of Eccentricity CHAPTER 10. Full of Woes CHAPTER 11. Four Sons and a Daughter CHAPTER 12. The Antipathy of Similars CHAPTER 13. A Serious Slight CHAPTER 14. Wounded Feelings CHAPTER 15. Catastrophe CHAPTER 16. A Family Divided CHAPTER 17. The Peer and the Poet CHAPTER 18. In the Dock CHAPTER 19. The Price of Victory CHAPTER 20. ‘Where Stars shall ever shed their Light’ Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index