Reading 'Oscar Wilde and Myself' by Lord Alfred Douglas is like stepping into a hall of mirrors—some reflections are sharp, others distorted by personal bias. Douglas was Wilde's lover and a central figure in his downfall, so his account is dripping with intimate details but also heavy with self-justification. The book often feels like a duel between vindication and vindictiveness, especially when Douglas tries to distance himself from Wilde's scandal. For a balanced view, I'd pair it with Richard Ellmann's definitive biography, which cross-references letters and contemporaries. Douglas's prose is elegant, but his version of events? Let's just say it's more poetic license than courtroom testimony.
That said, there's a raw honesty in his emotional recollections—Wilde's wit, their volatile relationship, the agony of the trials. It captures the feeling of Wilde's life even when the facts get slippery. I love it as a tragic love letter, but I wouldn't cite it as a historical document without backup.
As a literature nerd who’s obsessed with Wilde’s paradoxes, I treat 'Oscar Wilde and Myself' like a fascinating but flawed Artifact. Douglas writes with the wounded pride of someone who knows history blames him (fairly or not). His portrayal of Wilde swings between tender and bitter—sometimes in the same paragraph! The accuracy? Questionable, especially his claims about Wilde’s 'corruption' of him. Modern scholars note how Douglas sanitizes his own role in the scandal while painting Wilde as both victim and villain.
Still, it’s invaluable for understanding the emotional fallout of Wilde’s imprisonment. Douglas describes Wilde’s post-prison decline with gut-wrenching vividness, like his haunting account of their last meeting in Naples. Just keep a salt shaker handy for the parts where Douglas rewrites history to cast himself as the wronged party.
Lord Alfred Douglas’s biography is a messy, captivating read—part confession, part revenge. He’s brutally honest about Wilde’s charms and flaws, but his own biases twist the narrative like a pretzel. For instance, he downplays his family’s role in Wilde’s prosecution while exaggerating Wilde’s 'influence' over him. The book’s strength isn’t in its facts (many are disputed) but in its atmosphere: the decadence of their Paris days, the suffocating moral hypocrisy of Victorian England. It feels like eavesdropping on a private fight—raw and unfiltered. Pair it with Merlin Holland’s work for a clearer picture.
2026-01-02 20:52:31
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What was it like to grow old? Graduate college? Have a career in life? Get married and have your own family with your own kids?
I am Celene Monte and I dreamt of those once maybe somewhere in my other ninety-nine lifetimes.
Once the hands of the clock struck at twelfth midnight on the 22nd of April again, the day I turned eighteen, I died all over again and reincarnated to another world.
And now this will be my 100th new cycle of life to live before turning 18.
But I didn't knew that in this lifetime, new things would begin again when I met a crazy but famous lead vocalist of Dare, the Interhigh Academy's most famous band. And a very stubborn girl who was determined to beat Dare and dream to become the best band in the world.
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Wordcount per chapter excluding the Prologue: 1200-2000 words
A/N: Happy Reading to all!
My father, Henry Carlton, is a genius painter. My mother, Candace Mills, is a world-class dancer.
Dad says Mom is his muse. To marry her, he gives up a family fortune worth hundreds of millions.
Everyone is moved to tears by their beautiful love story.
But on the day I am born, Mom is left paralyzed from childbirth and can never dance again. While taking care of me as I cry day and night, Dad does everything he can to help Mom recover.
One day, he disappears. All he leaves behind is one letter accusing Mom and me of destroying his inspiration. He says we are the ones to blame.
My helpless Mom holds me in her arms as I do nothing but cry. She becomes convinced that if I can become Dad's new muse, he will come back. So, she pushes herself through grueling rehabilitation and devotes everything she has to training me.
When I win the silver medal at a national dance championship, Mom finally sees Dad again.
Dressed in an impeccable suit, he carries himself with the confidence and air of a wealthy man. He has one arm wrapped around one of the competition judges, and the two of them are openly affectionate with each other.
Unable to take the sight of him with another woman, Mom runs out. While chasing after her, I tumble down a flight of stairs.
When I finally limp back home, Mom is waiting for me. She grips a stick tightly with a dark look in her eyes.
"If you can't become a muse, then what good are you?"
I used to be the most promising composer of my generation. But while I was working on my latest piece, my husband Charles Lambert's childhood friend destroyed everything I had.
She slashed my face, stole my compositions, and set fire to my house—leaving me to burn alive alongside the kitten I'd just adopted.
Then, as if my death were just a spark for her success, she posted my compositions online, claiming I'd plagiarized her.
And people believed her. Everyone did. Strangers on the internet sneered and spat my name, and my own husband, Charles, chose to believe her over me.
Even the International Musical Society rescinded my award and handed it to her without a second thought. My students, who once followed me loyally, were now fawning over her.
I became the laughingstock of the entire internet—mocked, discredited, erased.
It wasn't until a week later, when someone stumbled upon the charred remains of my lakeside studio, that they found what was left of me.
Her name was Cathedra. Leave her last name blank, if you will.
Where normal people would read, "And they lived happily ever after," at the end of every fairy tale story, she could see something else. Three different things.
Three words: Lies, lies, lies.
A picture that moves.
And a plea: Please tell them the truth.
All her life she dedicated herself to becoming a writer and telling the world what was being shown in that moving picture. To expose the lies in the fairy tales everyone in the world has come to know.
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Instead of dying, she found herself blessed with a second life inside the fairy tale novels she wrote, and living the life she wished she had with the characters she considered as the only friends she had in the world she left behind.
Cathedra was happy until she realized that an ominous presence lurks within her stories. One that wanted to kill her to silence the only one who knew the truth.
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On my ninety-ninth rebirth, I stopped fighting with the real heiress, Lily Hart.
I accepted every false accusation she threw at me and let my relationships with my two childhood friends fall apart.
I told myself it was fine. At least Wayne Fall was still on my side.
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Wayne pulled her into his arms and, for the first time, turned his anger on me.
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In the second, my cousin, Ryan Hayes, fell from a skyscraper and was torn apart on impact.
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Adrian and Ryan threw me into the estate's artificial lake.
I couldn't swim.
Water flooded my lungs until tears streamed down my face, but no matter how desperately I begged for help, neither of them reacted.
By the time my consciousness finally faded away, someone dragged me out of the water.
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"Looks like she's finally learned her lesson. At least you won't have to keep hypnotizing her anymore, Wayne. I was starting to worry all those pills would fry her brain."
"There'll definitely be some cognitive damage... But we didn't have a choice. Lily's the Harts' real daughter. If she refused to give in, she'd end up being pushed out of the family sooner or later."
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I had a family of my own too.
Oscar Wilde and Myself' is Lord Alfred Douglas's attempt to reconcile his turbulent relationship with Wilde while grappling with his own reputation. The book is part memoir, part defense, written years after Wilde's imprisonment and death. Douglas paints himself as a victim of Wilde's influence, distancing himself from the scandal that ruined both their lives. He portrays Wilde as a corrupting force, which feels like a stark betrayal given their once-intimate bond. The tone is defensive and self-serving, often criticized for its lack of sincerity. Douglas's narrative wavers between admiration and resentment, making it a fascinating but deeply flawed account.
What stands out is how Douglas oscillates between vilifying Wilde and subtly acknowledging his genius. The book fails to fully capture the complexity of their relationship, reducing it to a moral cautionary tale. It's a frustrating read because you sense the unresolved guilt and love beneath the surface. Douglas's prose is elegant but hollow, like he's trying to convince himself as much as the reader. If you're looking for a nuanced exploration of their bond, this isn't it—but as a historical artifact, it's undeniably compelling.
Reading 'The Life of Oscar Wilde: A Biography' feels like stepping into a velvet-lined theater where tragedy and brilliance play out in equal measure. It dives deep into Wilde’s meteoric rise as a wit and playwright, his flamboyant persona lighting up Victorian London, and then—oh, the fall. The book doesn’t shy away from the raw details of his trial and imprisonment for 'gross indecency,' which still stuns me with its cruelty. But what lingers isn’t just the injustice; it’s how Wilde’s creativity flickered even in exile, writing 'De Profundis' in his bleakest hours.
What I love most is how the biography captures his contradictions—the man who crafted 'The Importance of Being Earnest' with its glittering triviality also penned soul-wrenching letters about suffering. It’s a reminder that genius isn’t tidy. The book left me furious at society’s hypocrisy but in awe of how Wilde turned pain into art. His story’s like a diamond—sharp, multifaceted, and impossible to look away from.