A fateful destiny

Uncanny happenings and anecdotes: this portrait of Oscar Wilde and his troubled friends is a decadent delight, says Christopher Josiffe

Dancing with Salomé Courting the Uncanny with Oscar Wilde & Friends Nina Antonia Trapart Books 2021 Pb, 130pp, £15, ISBN 9789198692006 Comprising five essays, each of which highlights esoteric aspects of Oscar Wilde’s fateful relationship with “Bosie”, aka Lord Alfred Douglas, this book, while slim, includes many surprising details new to this reviewer, despite some familiarity with Wilde’s triumphs and travails. Constance Wilde’s membership of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, alongside Yeats, Machen and the ubiquitous Crowley, is well-known. Less so, perhaps, is the idea that Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray included some of the Order’s ritual secrets, passed on to her husband by Constance. These were not to be shared among the profane on “pain of being paralysed without visible weapon”. Constance later became seriously ill…

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Fortean Times (Digital) - 1 Issue, 423

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