The Trials of Oscar Wilde and Socrates: Love and Death.
“A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.”
― Oscar Wilde
On 18 February 1895, the Marquess of Queensbury — yes that Queensbury of the boxing rules— left his calling card at Oscar Wilde’s club, the Albemarle, inscribed:
“For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite” (sic) see below.
Wilde, encouraged by Douglas and against the advice of his friends, initiated a private prosecution against Queensberry for libel, since the note amounted to a public accusation that Wilde had committed the crime of sodomy. Although it does not actually say that. It states Wilde is ‘posing’ as a ‘somdomite’ (sic) which was assumed to be either a misspelling in the heat of the moment or an idiosyncratic spelling of the act direct from the mind of the Marquess.
The Marquess had attempted to stop his son from being in the company of Oscar Wilde and he was now left with no option but to publically alledge such a crime. I assume he believed that given the serious repercussions that could follow — and did — from this threat of public humiliation of Wilde — a married man with children — Bosie and Wilde…
