Our guest is Stephen Fry, writer, actor and polymath, who last week joined John and Andy in person to discuss Oscar Wilde's De Profundis, the essay addressed to Lord Alfred Douglas in 1897 'from the depths' of Wilde's incarceration in Reading Gaol. It has been described by Colm Tóibín as 'one of the greatest love letters ever written'; it is also Wilde's most powerful testament of the sacred duty of the artist as he conceived it. We discuss the work's convoluted publication history, Wilde's posthumous reputation and his ongoing relevance in the 21st century. In addition, Andy has been reading Hayley Campbell's fascinating All the Living and the Dead (Raven Books), which he describes as "a work of true rigour mortis"; while John digs enthusiastically into Villager (Unbound), the new novel from writer and former Backlisted guest Tom Cox.

Books mentioned:

Oscar Wilde - De Profundis & Other Prison Writings (edited by Colm Tóibín); The Importance of Being Earnest & Other Plays (edited by Peter Raby); The Soul of Man Under Socialism & Selected Critical Prose
Stephen Fry - Fry’s Ties; Stephen Fry’s Inside Your Mind (Audio)
Hayley Campbell - All the Living & the Dead
Tom Cox - Villager
Matthew Sturgis - Oscar: A Life
Richard Ellmann - Oscar Wilde
Emmanuel Carrère - The Kingdom

Other links

Bunthorne sings "Am I Alone and Unobserved?" from Gilbert & Sullivan's Patience (1891)
De Profundis read by Simon Russell Beale, introduction by Merlin Holland
De Profundis: Oscar Wilde's Letter from Inside (BBC Radio 4, 2016)
Omnibus: Oscar (BBC One, 1997)
Prisoner C33 (BBC Four, 2022)
Neil Bartlett reads the whole of De Profundis in the old chapel of Reading Prison, 2016
Patti Smith reads extracts from De Profundis in the old chapel of Reading Prison, 2016
Rupert Everett reads ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ in the old chapel of Reading Prison, 2016
Stephen Fry in Wilde (Brian Gilbert, 1997)
The Happy Prince (Rupert Everett, 2018)
John Betjeman and Jim Parker, ‘The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel’ (from Betjeman's Banana Blush, Charisma Records 1974)
Colm Tóibín on De Profundis, 2016
The Oscar Wilde Society