The Green Carnation
Encyclopedia
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
and Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Douglas
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas , nicknamed Bosie, was a British author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde...
- also known as 'Bosie', whom the author personally knew. It was an instant succès de scandale
Succès de scandale
Succès de scandale is French for "success from scandal", i.e. when a success derives from a scandal.It might seem contradictory that any kind of success might follow from scandal: but scandal attracts attention, and this attention is sometimes the beginning of notoriety and/or other successes...
on both sides of the Atlantic.
The reviewer for The London Observer wrote, "The Green Carnation will be read and discussed by everyone... nothing so impudent, so bold, or so delicious has been printed these many years."
The book features the characters of 'Esmé Amarinth' (Wilde), and 'Lord Reginald (Reggie) Hastings' (Douglas). The words put in the mouths of the hero and his young friend in the story are mostly gathered from the sayings of their originals. Robert Hichens spent nearly a year "in the company of the men" and was able to accurately recreate the atmosphere and relationship between Oscar and Bosie.
The book was withdrawn from circulation in 1895, but by that time the damage had been done. Wilde soon stood three consecutive trials for Gross Indecency and was sentenced to two years at hard labor. The Green Carnation was one of the works used against him by the prosecution.
The Green Carnation was republished in 2006 as a hardcover, with a Foreword by Anthony Wynn
Anthony Wynn
Anthony Wynn is an American author and playwright.-Playwright:Wynn's two-act, two-actor drama Bernard and Bosie: A Most Unlikely Friendship, explores the complex relationship between playwright George Bernard Shaw and poet Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas. It is based on correspondence exchanged...
.