Oscar Wilde 1912. The book only briefly mentioned Wilde's life, but subsequently Ransome (and The Times Book Club) were sued for libel by Lord Alfred Douglas. The trial in April 1913 was in a way a re-run of the trials of Oscar Wilde. The trial resulted from Douglas's rivalry with Robbie Ross for Wilde (and his need of money). Douglas lost after a reading of "De Profundis" refuted his claims. Wilde's life was still waiting for independent, true scholarship when Richard Ellmann began researching his 1987 biography "Oscar Wilde", for which he posthumously won a National (USA) Book Critics Circle Award in
Oscar Wilde which can be good character sketches, but are sometimes factually unreliable. Frank Harris, his friend and editor, wrote a biography, "Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions" (1916); though prone to exaggeration and sometimes factually inaccurate, it offers a good literary portrait of Wilde. Lord Alfred Douglas wrote two books about his relationship with Wilde. "Oscar Wilde and Myself" (1914), largely ghost-written by T. W. H. Crosland, vindictively reacted to Douglas's discovery that "De Profundis" was addressed to him and defensively tried to distance him from Wilde's scandalous reputation. Both authors later regretted their work. Later, in "Oscar Wilde: A Summing