Wilde's last stand : decadence, conspiracy & the First World War

Philip Hoare

Even though Oscar Wilde -- playwright, wit, critic, and convicted sodomite -- died exiled and disgraced in 1900, his memory and influence remain central to British culture. In 1918 the specter of Wilde manifested itself in what social historian Philip Hoare calls the trial of the century. This shocking libel case was brought by American actress Maud Allan, who had just appeared in a production of Wilde's Salome, against Noel Pemberton Billing, an arch-conservative M.P., who accused her of being a member of the cult of the clitoris: his catch phase for a sexual and social degeneracy that he saw as destroying England.