babe
babe
how much do you love me
oh god
are you in prison again?
no
what?
no
lol that was like one time in france
it doesn’t count as prison if you’re in france
anyhow
what are you doing like right now
I’m trying to finish The Importance of Being Earnest
okay well
stop doing that and sue my dad
what?
you should sue my dad
why would I do that?
he’s been telling everyone you’re gay
I am gay
well but he’s being really shitty about it
everyone’s shitty about it
okay
fine
well then just sue him because he sucks and I hate him
that doesn’t seem like much of a basis for a legal case
oh my god
are you going to sue him or not
all I want is a boyfriend who will sue my dad
I really don’t think that’s too much to ask
a boyfriend who will sue my dad and also come down to the Savoy to bail me out because they keep saying I owe them like £300 for champagne and sex grease
what?
right?
like I brought my OWN sex grease obviously
babe come over
are you all right, my ivory poppet?
no
im sick
come over and take care of me
it’s the boys’ first day of school
and Constance’s birthday
come over im dying
all right
I’ll be there
bring champagne
sweet Christ, Bosie
the lawyer has produced the letters I gave you in court
how in God’s name did they find their way to his hands?
I told you to burn them
what letters
our — letters of an intimacy, Alfred
ahhh
did u give them to me when I was wearing that velvet suit
I don’t know
I think so
I do think so
because i gave that away
the letters?
or the suit?
i mean both i guess
like the letters were in the suit probably
lol idk i gave that guy a LOT of stuff
what guy?
the sex guy
that one guy who has sex for money
or like one of the guys who has sex for money
hahaha
obviously there’s not just the one
JESUS
Bosie, what is this?
um
its my translation of Salmoe i did for you?
SALOMÉ
IT’S “SALOMÉ”
thats what i said
its the version i did of your Salmon in English
youre welcome
do you even speak French
uhh what kind of a question is that
champagne
merde
yes i speak french
what does this sentence mean?
‘On ne doit regarder que dans les miroirs’?
“don’t look in mirrors”
“buy low, sell mirrors”
“a mirror saved is a mirror earned”
IT MEANS
“ONE SHOULD ONLY LOOK IN MIRRORS”
right
something about mirrors
it’s French, it’s all the same thing
oh and not to be a dick or anything by the way
but i havent gotten my translators fee yet??
Bosie, are you at home?
yeah
do u want me to CUM OVER
lol
😉
Bosie, I’m ill and Constance is away
could you please come by the house and see me?
ahhh sorry im actually not in town right now?
you said you were going to come over a moment ago
i
say
a lot of things
but
um
im in jail right now
in France
in french jail so
hope u feel better soon babe
get better so we can have sex when youre better and not gross
Bosie
Bosie darling, they’re sending me to Pentonville for two years
I must see you before I go
please come
sorry new phone who is this
also like whoever this is I like girls now
I mean I liked them before
just like a heads up
girls: I’m for ‘em
their legs and what have you
all the various bits that make up girls, physically and sexually and so on
big fan
so if you know any girls for sex
send them my way
send them my sexual way
(for sex)
Tags: dirtbags, fuck bosie, literally all of these things happened in real life, lord alfred douglas, oscar wilde, perfidy and wretched villainy, teenage dirtbags, yeah he spent most of his incarceration at redding but he was initially sentenced to pentonville
SALMOE
The Anthem of the Dirtbags. “sorry who is this?”
“new mobile, who dis?”
I love that skit so much, tiny ümails and “boob touches” and all.
I want to let my German bowl cut blow is zuh wind.
I am a Dirtbag! It is official!
(sometimes I delete your digits, dudes, sorrrrrry)
YES THIS EXACTLY THIS.
I’ve always said if he wasn’t dead and gay, I’d marry Oscar Wilde in a heartbeat. Poooooooor Oscar, dirtbag Alfred.
*Angels come on down from heaven in little fur capes, carrying cigarillos and silver–topped canes*
Oscar Wilde was Bi!
*Angels ascend again*
(okay, at least I think so. He stayed with his wife, had children by her, two things which don’t definitely mean ‘bi’ but could certainly mean it, also bi visibility needs the help.)
These are the best angels. Just gotta get over the dead bit, but this is progress!
Sorry, probably not:
“At about this time, Yeats heard a “wonderful tale” from Dowson concerning his adventure with Wilde in Dieppe. When Dowson “pressed upon [Wilde] the necessity of acquiring ‘a more wholesome taste,”‘ they pooled their financial resources and proceeded to the appropriate place, accompanied by a cheering crowd. At their destination, Dowson and the crowd waited in the street until Wilde emerged. To Dowson, he whispered, “The first these ten years, and it will be the last. It was like cold mutton” – then he added aloud so that the crowd could hear, “But tell it in England, for it will entirely restore my character”.
Marrying and having children with a woman is hardly evidence in the nineteenth century.
That’s not actually very good evidence either. Thirdhand evidence he claimed not to have enjoyed sex with that particular woman =/= never having enjoyed sex with women!
Claiming someone who isn’t there to speak for themselves as gay or bi is kind of daft either way. He had socially-sanctioned sex with women and socially-condemned sex with men. Who has any idea how much he enjoyed it?!
It was more the ten years without sex prior to the prostitute, along with the fact that he had to be convinced to develop “more wholesome” tastes – it’s only very special circumstances that consider prostitutes WHOLESOME.
As a young man he had slept with female prostitutes (as the easiest sex available), but reported (in diaries) never enjoying it, except for the pride he seemed to take in the fact that the women seemed to like it.
yeah. and also I mean as evidence for the obvious, I would adduce all of his early poetry and other works that mention women in any sentimental capacity whatsoever. all these pale flowers beaten by the rain, it is embarrassing. he had one flash of inspiration of what might constitute an attraction to a woman and by god he recycled it as much as ever he could. sexual desire looks like a lot of things and that is not one of them.
on the other hand, he did say all bad poetry came from genuine feeling, so there’s an argument for the other side if one must be had.
I think his sexuality sort of slid back and forth, inching more and more towards “gay” as he got older. He was in love with Florence Balcombe as a young man, and he certainly seems to have been enamoured of Constance when they got married, but in later years he made statements to the effect of “ugh women’s bodies are GROSS.”
Fluid sexuality is important to acknowledge too!
Where are the angels? Sure they’ll make an announcement on this if we ask them. They’re very obliging.
One probably shouldn’t get into frothing rages about historical figures long dead and therefore immune to righteous anger, but FUCKING GODDAMN BOSIE THE SWINE.
True story: My officemate just turned to me and asked if I was okay, explaining: “Your face is kind of doing a scrunchy, grouchy thing.” GODDAMN YOU, BOSIE.
(I wrote a paper on Kaufman’s Gross Indecency for my 3L Law and Literature class, and my college thesis involved the decriminalization of homosexuality in Britain, so I may have very very very many feelings about this.)
send them my sexual way
I hate him so much. Thank you for shining an unflinching light on his dirt-bagginess. Oscar deserved so much better.
I really wish this had been around when I took my Aestheticism & Decadence course –and, of course, studied “Salmon.”
Oh my god I did not realize not everybody died with pity for poor stupid useless Lord Alfred Douglas. I feel injured. deeply. look, LOOK: Everything that happened to Oscar Wilde, deserved and undeserved and extremely undeserved, he still got to be Oscar Wilde every day of his life and if you are honest with yourself you know very well he was never in love with Bosie for a second and never loved anybody at all except maybe some of his friends, maybe Robert Ross a little bit. That is all right, it was not in his gift, not everyone can do everything and Oscar Wilde of all people did not need to learn about human feelings in order to improve upon his genius.
whereas Alfred, whom I call Alfred because I like to, was not worth anything and knew it and the thing that geniuses never understand is that worthless people and untalented people do know that about themselves. He was never anything but his looks and then he grew up and lost them, and he never broke anybody’s heart as long as he lived, he did not have the capacity for it. and also it was not his fault about Oscar going to prison, that was society and also his dad and his dad is not his fault!!
!!
!
Omg hi the reincarnation of Lady Douglas. IF YOU LOVE HIM SO MUCH WHY DON’T YOU MARRY HIM.
because one person treating him as nothing but an adequate lay and a good source of florid sentimental rhetoric is enough!
plus I bet he was bad in bed
you’ve literally never been more wrong, he forced Wilde to press charges when Wilde was planning on fleeing to France
oh, forced him did he. nobody ever forced that man to do anything (except go to prison.) I have fled to France before so I know how it’s done and no man on earth could have stopped me no matter how petulant he was.
like Benjamin Franklin said, he who chooses his boyfriend over France deserves neither France nor a boyfriend. (but not prison either.)
I’m loving this debate! Historical literary facts! Salacious details! Travelling to France!
Nowhere would this be found except on the Toast. God, I love you commenters so much.
Lord Alfred Douglas is not even my favorite of History’s Worthless Lovers, that would be Valentine Ackland. just let Mallory try and besmirch her philandering alcoholic name.
Valentine Ackland, you say? Casually climbs down, whistling while she goes, into the Rabbit Hole.
PS. Speaking of bunnies, Modern Farmer is highlighting gargantuan sized rabbits (25lbs). The pics are crazy!
Sent from my iPad
“Known as the Minorcan King of Rabbits, they weighed nearly 30 pounds…”
MINORCAN KING OF RABBITS
ALL HAIL THE RABBIT KING
ALL HAIL HIS LEPORID MAJESTY
i’m going to mail so many copies of Neil McKenna’s “The Secret Life Of Oscar Wilde” at you that i can’t hear your WRONG OPINIONS from underneath them
I just love that your post is what passes for trolling around here 🙂
I am EXQUISITELY sincere about this! I am so sincere I am punctuating my sentences properly! If I had a green carnation in front of me I would be picking it to pieces in distress with palsied agitated fingers!
Yes I am replying to this after a hundred years, but do NOT refer to the douche canoe that is Bosie by the name Alfred which should solely belong to the Bestest King England Ever Had and Ever Will.
Yes, I am still very emotional after watching The Last Kingdom.
Just re-read the Whitman/Wilde post to make myself feel better.
Oh my god Bosie is the WORST. Just the absolute worst.
(Jude Law, on being personally sought out for the role in Wilde: “Bosie was the first part I was ever offered, which I suppose is sort of an insult because he’s just the nastiest bastard!”)
I do love the “Perfidy and Wretched Villainy” tag.
Yes! Looking forward to additional entries in that.
“buy low, sell mirrors” sounds legit to me. Can someone graffiti this all over your nearest Wall Street please?
He was just the worst.
I saw The Judas Kiss last year, and I swear people hissed when Bosie came on stage. It was also the only show I’ve ever been to where a portion of the audience (not me) cried through the entire show, stopping only for gin in the intermission.
Crying with breaks for gin is me living my best life
(oh god Bosie in later life claiming he had been put on Earth to stop Wilde’s depravity and also when he died he was going to be his beautiful young blonde self in heaven again aaaaaargh. And that one biography that was oddly sympathetic to him kept like, cutting off people’s lines about him so he sounded better aargh.)
Although I never understood why Wilde didn’t just leave for France, his wife was all ” COME LIVE IN FRANCE, I DON’T CARE WHO YOU SEE JUST STAY AWAY FROM THAT BOY.” Wilde is all no I think I’ll sit here and drink myself into a stupor and miss the last ferry to Calis bye.
Crying with gin breaks is the best way to go to the theatre, particularly when Rupert Everett is involved.
No, the not leaving is understandable, if deeply misguided. I know those people, the twisted narrative arc people.
‘No, listen. I’m not breaking up with him yet, because this is the part of the story right before something interesting happens.’
‘He’s definitely gay. We got drunk once and made out, and I know what that means because I’ve read Maurice.’
‘This is a boring week. I think I’ll pick a fight so that next week, something happened this week.’
‘I’m just going to wait a bit more before I go to France. They’re not going to arrest me, because the narrative tension at this moment is excellent.’
Yeah like large chunks of that trial was him believing performance and celebrity would trump like, law – of course a trial is a stage show, just not the kind he would write.
Also everyone screws up that love that dare not speak its name line – he’s talking about PURELY PLATONIC LOVE between men cause, you know, he was trying to prove he didn’t sleep with them thus proving it was libel and dear god it was the dumbest case on Earth and it was ALL BOSIE’S FAULT.
Crying with gin breaks at the theater sounds even better than my standard opera-going practice, which is “crying with breaks for overpriced prosecco.”
and serious weeping, sometimes I break for serious weeping.
Gintermission.
Bosie was responsible for the wallpaper. Trufax
Lord Bosie… a bad egg of a boyfriend who had bad taste, too. He never owned up to choosing the wallpaper that drove Oscar Wilde to wretchedness. The really horrible thing about this story is that I was once in a relationship with Bosie reincarnated. Of course, my Bosie was a middle-aged, fat, machine operator/guitar player who is still playing the seedy bar circuit in his free time. Oh, but those dirtbags are all alike! They are all very cute or kind of cute, or they used to be cute when they were younger. They’re not that talented and you break up with them a lot. But then they say such hilarious things. And they all want you to DO something you wouldn’t normally do, like sue their fathers. And they never take care of you when you get sick. But you don’t find out about all the dirtbag things until you’re in jail because of them.
A) THIS IS PERFECT
B) my fave ‘bosie is the worst’ story is the story of wilde’s letter from prison, de profundis– wilde writes this tremendous meditation on spiritually and forgiveness (and about how much bosie SUCKS and how he’s a bastard-coated bastard with bastard filling), and it’s totally beautiful. wilde dies and robbie ross transcribes the letter and sends it to bosie, explaining that it’s a long-ass letter oscar wrote to him from prison, and bosie THROWS IT IN A FIRE. and then robbie is like LOL I SENT YOU A COPY, NOT THE ORIG, BECAUSE I KNOW YOU, AND I KNOW YOU’RE A FUCKING CHILD. and then bosie is like NO FAIR IT’S MY LETTER SEND IT TO ME SO I CAN BURN IT OR I’LL FUCKING SUE YOU ACTUALLY I’LL SUE YOU ANYWAY and robbie’s like whatevs brb expurgating the shitty parts about you and publishing this in france so we can keep the copyright for oscar’s kids THE END.
And I think the penguin edition has the full letter- you’ll know you’re reading the expurgated, earlier (public domain) version if it starts mid-sentence. other versions start with some variation ‘dear bosie, FUCK YOU.’ (ooh the british library put the SCANS OF THE MANUSCRIPT online SHIIIIIIIT)
LET’S SIT HERE AND LOATHE AWFUL DEAD VICTORIANS FOREVER
A THOUSAND TIMES YES
Grrrrr. Everything I read about Bosie makes me want to take off my glove, slap him really hard across the face, and challenge him to a duel. SWORDS OR PISTOLS AT DAWN, SIR, YOUR CHOICE.
“bastard-coated bastard with bastard filling”–I died.
Obligatory Kate Beaton links:
Part one: http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=153
Part two: http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=154
“Ain’t I a stinker…”
Ha, yes, I immediately scrolled down to make sure someone linked to these. 🙂
THIS IS SO REAL.
Bless you, Ortberg.
There was a point in high school when I told everyone De Profundis was my favorite book so that says a lot about me. Also it recalls my favorite part of the awesome/wrenching Stephen Fry/Jude Law Wilde movie:
Douglas: Well, I’m not looking after you. Not now. You don’t interest me, not when you’re ill. You’re just a boring, middle-aged man with a blocked-up nose.
Wilde: Bosie, dearest boy…
Douglas: Shut up! Dearest boy! Darling Bosie! It doesn’t mean anything! You don’t love me! The only person you’ve ever loved is yourself. You like me, you lust after me, you go about with me because I’ve got a title. That’s all. You like to write about Dukes and Duchesses, but you know nothing about them. You’re the biggest snob I’ve ever met, and you think you’re so daring because you fuck the occasional boy.
Wilde: Bosie, please… You’re killing me…
Douglas: You just about do when you’re at your best. You’re amusing, very amusing, but when you’re not at your best, you’re no one!
Wilde: All I asked for was a glass of water…
I found out a few years ago that Bosie Douglas and I share a birthday, and I still haven’t gotten over it.
October 22 is the day for non-dirtbags to be born, go away Bosie
Oh me too and I didn’t know Douglas was born then too until just now. But we also get Catherine Deneuve, so there’s that.
Great. Now I’m mad at Bosie all over again.
BOOOOOOOOSIE DOOOOOOOOOUGLAS
(imagine that being said in the same tone as “STEEEEVE CAAAAARLSBURG.”)
Now I’m imagining a Wildean WTNV episode, and my brain just exploded.
oh dear lord, yes please.
“I have always held that if one should happen to see anything, the best course is to say nothing, buy a new coat, and drink to forget.”
In Graham Greene’s autobiography he mentions his father encountering Oscar Wilde in Naples shortly after his release from prison:
Once – it was in Naples – [Greene’s father and his friend] had a curious encounter. A stranger hearing them speak English asked whether he might join them over their coffee. There was something familiar and to them vaguely disagreeable about his face, but he kept them charmed by his wit for more than an hour before he said good-bye. They didn’t exchange names even at parting and he left them to pay for his drink, which was certainly not coffee. It was some while before they realised in whose company they’d been. The stranger was Oscar Wilde, who not very long before had been released from prison. ‘ Think,’ my father would always conclude his story, ‘how lonely he must have been to have expended so much time and wit on a couple of schoolmasters on holiday.’ It never occurred to him that Wilde was paying for his drink in the only currency he had.*
*I think this encounter must have been during the Christmas holidays of 1897-8 when his friend Bosie had departed and Wilde wrote of ‘ill-health, loneliness, and generally ennui with a tragicomedy of an existence’.
(I typed that out for you because I am a very very lovely person with nothing else to do)
One of my favorite Wilde stories is about the time he went swimming in the ocean at dawn with Natalie Barney’s mother. She was heartbroken because her husband was being a cad (again), so he thought he’d cheer her up by sneaking out before dawn and taking her for a dip in the ocean. Somehow, she broke her toe, so Wilde had to carry her back into the house. Victorian mores and all, they had to be VERY sneaky about the whole thing.
A Natalie Barney anecdote I have not heard, how is this.
FUCK BOSIE sounds like a t-shirt slogan I would have worn in college.
(Or right now.)
I’d wear it.
I already have a t-shirt from college that declares I am ‘Wilde for Oscar’, so this would be an appropriate addition to my wardrobe, I think.
I’d also be tempted by, “Seriously, don’t fuck Bosie. He’s so not worth it.”
Bosie’s family was so screwed up. His grandfather was the 8th Marquess of Queensbury, who died in a “shooting accident” that was probably a suicide. From Wikipedia: “One of his [Bosie’s] uncles, Lord James Douglas, was deeply attached to his twin sister ‘Florrie’ and was heartbroken when she married. In 1885, he tried to abduct a young girl, and after that became ever more manic. In 1888, Lord James married, but this proved disastrous.[3] Separated from Florrie, James drank himself into a deep depression,[3] and in 1891 committed suicide by cutting his throat.[2] Another of his uncles, Lord Francis Douglas (1847–1865) had died in a climbing accident on the Matterhorn. His uncle Lord Archibald Edward Douglas (1850–1938), on the other hand, became a clergyman.[2][4] (Alfred Douglas’s only child was in turn to go mad, and died in a mental hospital.)” So much madness and suicide! And then there was his older brother, another “shooting accident” that was probably suicide/murder, and who was possibly having an affair with the Prime Minister. Gay scandals and suicide seemed to be a running theme.
(I went on an LGBT history-themed tour of Brighton last summer; one of the stops was the Grand Hotel, where the guide talked about Bosie abandoning poor ill Oscar. It was excellent.)
This is so funny but so heartbreaking that it is almost too heartbreaking to be funny.
Oh Oscar Wilde you helped my teenage years so and it hurts me to think of what Bosie did to you!
Reading Bosie, hearing Archer. Both dirtbags par excellence.
ivory poppet yesssssss.
Late to this party, but I am always, always here for Bosie-hate. What a little shit he was.
This is hilarious but now I’m deeply upset because I am never not upset about the fate that befell Oscar Wilde. It’s just that I manage to go for extended periods of time without remembering this, and then something reminds me and wrecks the loveliness of life. 🙁
This is everything I love in life in one post
I don’t even like Oscar Wilde, like I read part of The Picture of Dorian Grey but I gave up after Basil died because he was the only redeeming feature in the whole damn book, but Bosie is a douchecanoe and if i ever discovered timetravel I would go find Oscar and tell him to break up with that little shit.
He was the PERFECT casting.