De Profundis

Written from a prison cell in 1897, this long letter began as a private reckoning addressed to Lord Alfred Douglas, the younger lover whose recklessness helped drag Oscar Wilde to ruin. Wilde revisits the affair, the lawsuits, and the vanity that led to his conviction for gross indecency, but the letter keeps widening into something larger: a meditation on suffering, humility, art, and the figure of Christ as a supreme artist of compassion. The old wit survives, though chastened, and the prose swings between bitterness and a hard-won tenderness. It stands among the most moving self-examinations in the language. First published in an abridged form in 1905, this free PDF and EPUB edition brings the letter to new readers.