Why I’m Obsessed with the Letters of Oscar Wilde
In my sophomore and junior year of high school I sat next to my crush in English class. She and I wrote letters to each other and passed them in the hallway. Mine usually began with the Italian phrase bella ragazza, beautiful girl. This is where my obsession with Oscar Wilde began. In the classroom library was a beat up paperback of Wilde’s most famous book, The Picture of Dorian Gray. We poured over it’s yellowed pages, exchanging passages we liked and laughing at the outlandish behavior of Dorian, Basil, and Lord Henry.
My crush went on to become a historian and I went on to become a professional bookworm. Our mutual interest in Oscar Wilde’s letters and love affair with Lord Alfred Douglas (also known as Bosie) was a natural extension of our comings-out.
[...]
Wrote a very gay article about my first crush, favorite literary figure, and did a deep dive into some of his very gay letters. I hope it finds the other Gay Aesthetes of the modern century ~*~*
