The stranger Wilde

Though Oscar Wilde's legendary life and his extraordinary art are both intimately and unmistakably linked to his homosexuality, no Wilde biographer has ever really explored the full implications of his gay identity - until now. Gary Schmidgall's is a true post-Stonewall performance, the first book to assert frankly that Wilde's sexual orientation is the key to his literary accomplishments and his enduring appeal. The Stranger Wilde sidesteps standard chronological biography to provide a brilliant portait drawn from Wilde's own writings and the observations of his contemporaries and later…