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
A Conversation with Oscar Wilde and Charing Cross Station, behind St Martin's in the Fields church. The unveiling was on 30 November 1998. It was preceded in 1997 by an exhibition at the nearby National Portrait Gallery, bringing together drawings, models and maquettes. The London sculpture was just pipped to the post by the Dublin triptych Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture, designed and made by Danny Osborne and unveiled in Wilde's birthplace, Merrion Square, in 1997. "A Conservation with Oscar Wilde", in which Wilde is depicted laughing and smoking, caused considerable friction. (The work was depicted in "Smoke: a global history of smoking".) Tom Lubbock, chief