Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas.Bosie Noun 1. bosie - a cricket ball bowled as if to break one way that actually breaks in the opposite way bosie ball, googly, wrong 'un bowling - (cricket) the act of delivering a cricket ball to the batsman : A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas (22 October 1870 – 20 March 1945) was a poet, a translator and a prose writer, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde. * Douglas Murray * Talk Miramax Books/Hyperion * $27.50 It's impossible to understand the tragedy that befell Oscar Wilde without understanding Lord Alfred Douglas, the bold young poet and emotional turncoat who was both Wilde's lover and his eventual undoing. This lengthy and detailed biography of Douglas covers his notorious affair with Wilde (for which the writer was imprisoned im·pris·on tr.v. im·pris·oned, im·pris·on·ing, im·pris·ons To put in or as if in prison; confine. [Middle English emprisonen, from Old French emprisoner : en- on counts of "gross indecency INDECENCY. An act against good behaviour and a just delicacy. 2 Serg. & R. 91. 2. The law, in general, will repress indecency as being contrary to good morals, but, when the public good requires it, the mere indecency of disclosures does not suffice to exclude " in 1895) and his previously unchronicled later years as well. Murray reveals that Douglas renounced his homosexuality, married, and converted to Catholicism. "Bosie," as he was known to friends, spent the rest of his litigious litigious adj. referring to a person who constantly brings or prolongs legal actions, particularly when the legal maneuvers are unnecessary or unfounded. Such persons often enjoy legal battles, controversy, the courtroom, the spotlight, use the courts to punish life reliving his betrayal of Wilde in a series of costly courtroom feuds with others. After suing anyone who dared to cross him, Douglas was finally imprisoned himself for libeling Winston Churchill. He died, forgotten, in 1945--nearly 45 years after Wilde's death. Murray began researching Douglas's life at age 15; today, he's an undergraduate at Magdalen College, Oxford, England, where Bosie himself studied. By continually pestering the British government for over a year, the author wrangled access to previously unavailable letters and personal papers, including a manuscript that had been embargoed until well into the 21st century. These documents shed new light on Douglas's troubled mind and expose him as anti-Semitic and a religion-obsessed elitist e·lit·ism or é·lit·ism n. 1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources. . Though Murray's criticism is well-balanced and fair-minded, he presents compelling evidence (in prose and poetry) that Douglas was one of the great unsung English poets of his day, his life undone by bad judgment and sad scandal. Murray's persuasive words may not alter Douglas's rogue status, but they do reveal the man behind "the love that dare not speak its name" and provide insight into why he destroyed his famous lover. Pela is the Arizona arts correspondent for National Public Radio. |
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