The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde is a 1983 novel by Peter Ackroyd. It won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1984. The novel is written in the form of a diary which Oscar Wilde was writing in Paris in 1900, up to his death. The diary itself is completely fictional, as is the detail contained, although the events and most of the characters (such as the characters of Lord Alfred Douglas, Robert Ross and the Earl of Rosebery and his incarceration, at Pentonville, later Reading) are real. In this diary he looks back at
Oscar Wilde bitter it tasted at the time. Wilde was released from prison on 19 May 1897 and sailed that evening for Dieppe, France. He never returned to the UK. On his release, he gave the manuscript to Ross, who may or may not have carried out Wilde's instructions to send a copy to Douglas (who later denied having received it). "De Profundis" was partially published in 1905; its complete and correct publication first occurred in 1962 in "The Letters of Oscar Wilde". Though Wilde's health had suffered greatly from the harshness and diet of prison, he had a feeling of spiritual