The Telegraph reports that love letters written by Oscar Wilde during his clandestine relationship with the young Lord Alfred Douglas (both pictured above) are to be made available to the public for the first time.
From the piece...
As well as the Wilde letters, the collection also includes heartbreaking correspondence by Charlotte Brontë as she struggles to come to terms with the death of her sister, Emily, and the poor health of her younger sister, Anne.
But it is the inclusion of the Wilde letters to Bosie and to other male lovers including Frank Miles and Robert Baldwin Ross that is likely to provoke most interest.
In one letter to Bosie dated 1894 he wrote: "My own dear boy – "It's really absurd – I can't live without you – you are so dear, so wonderful – I think of you all day long – and miss your grace, your boyish beauty, the … sword play of your wit, the delicate fancy of your genius so surprising…
"London is a desert without your dainty feet … take all my love – now and for ever, always and with devotion – but I have no words for how I love you – Oscar."
In another letter Wilde, having just returned from a trip to a fashionable barber, informs Bosie that "sonnet like allusions are made to your gilt silk hair".
As a brief aside, if you've ever wondered how Wilde's novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, got its name, wonder no more.
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