In 1895, Oscar Wilde was at the height of fame and popularity. A brilliant poet, playwright, and witty conversationalist, everything he did evoked either delight or scandal. His meetings with the young Lord Alfred Douglas became public knowledge. Alfred's father, the powerful Marquess of Queensberry, suspected that this relationship was more than friendship and began a public persecution of the writer. Ultimately, Wilde was sentenced to imprisonment. The society that once exalted him turned away and renounced him. While in prison, Oscar Wilde wrote De Profundis – a long and bitter letter addressed to Douglas filled with accusations, a mournful elegy about his lost greatness, and a passionate plea for reconciliation. It is an honest and relentless account of feelings, a deep reflection on human suffering, injustice, and pain.
