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 Peter Tatchell's campaign for a Royal Pardon, the 1997 film Wilde [...] and the public gatherings on the centenary of his death." Both Lubbock and Spencer pointedly advised their readers not to vandalise the sculpture. However, the cigarette has been repeatedly removed by members of the public (sawn off and replaced, according to Philip Ardagh), "the most frequent act of vandalism/veneration done to a public statue in London". A Conversation with Oscar Wilde A Conversation with Oscar Wilde is an outdoor sculpture by Maggi Hambling in central London. Unveiled in 1998, it is the first public monument dedicated to Oscar