In 1900, penniless and disgraced, Oscar Wilde, one of the greatest playwrights of all time, dies in a hotel in Paris. Or so everyone believes. Secretly his unconscious body, still flickering with life, is spirited away by devoted friends to an island monastery in the Venetian lagoon where he recovers his health and joie de vivre. From there he begins a series of adventures that include Auguste Rodin, a romance with an English aristocrat, a new lover, a session with Sigmund Freud, and an heroic death. Ashley's meticulously researched and imaginative novel honors Wilde's life and unparalleled command of the English language by giving voice to a writer who continues to charm and fascinate readers and audiences to this day.

Autorentext

Ardythe Ashley is the author of the novels The Christ of the Butterflies and In The Country of the Great King. While researching The Return of the Century she found herself in the Library of the British Museum reading the letters Oscar Wilde wrote in his dank cell in Reading Gaol to Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie), later published as De Profundis. "I'm sorry, Madam," came the firm-but-not-unkind voice of a white-gloved librarian, "but it is not permitted to weep upon the manuscripts." In addition to being a writer, Ashley is a retired psychoanalyst and forever a New Yorker (at heart).