Andy Miller

Was it really better in the old days?

Oh, yes.

The book we're here to discuss is, in fact, a letter known since 1905 as De Profundis, Latin for out of the depths, and a translation of the first line of Psalm 130.

It's a 50,000-word missive composed in Reading Prison by Oscar Wilde,

between January and March 1897, towards the end of his two-year sentence for gross indecency.

It is addressed to Lord Alfred Douglas, otherwise known as Bosie, his estranged lover and the prime cause of his downfall.

Now, there are many editions

with and without contextual material of De Profundis, available on the internet, in bookshops, in libraries.

We thought it would be useful to just recommend one to you.

The first one we would recommend is Volume 2 of the Oxford University Press Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, and that is currently available direct from Oxford's website for £232.50p.

LAUGHTER

I've got the London Library's copy here, incidentally.

I borrowed it for this.

But if you can't stretch to that, there is a Penguin Classic Edition called De Profundis and Other Prison Writings.

It's about a tenor, and that is edited and with an introduction by Colin Toybin, the novelist Colin Toybin.

That's really excellent.

I think I do.

Thank you for that.

Colm Toy Bean, thank you.

And I also, one final shout, you can probably pick this up for Pence.