Stephen Fry

And then went back the next week, have you got anything more?

She said, well, you've had the complete works and that's the complete works.

But I found in that little van a book by Montgomery Hyde called The Trials of Oscar Wilde.

And she looked at me and said, how old are you, my darling?

I said, 14.

I was

And she said, well, all right.

And she stamped it.

And I took it home and I started to read it.

And slowly this story emerged.

And it began to get darker and darker and unhappier and unhappier.

Because it was so wonderful to read about what a friend he was, what a supporter of others, what a cause of wit in others, as Shakespeare says about Falstaff.

Not just a wit, but a cause of wit in others.

And then to see him pulled down like that and all the time inside myself to know that the crime he had committed was a crime that I might perhaps commit, that I shared, to use his own wonderful word, his nature.

And so it was both a thrilling thing to read, but also a terrifying thing to read.

After he left jail, he gave the copy to Robbie and Robbie had it typed out under his orders twice and sent a copy to its supposed recipient, Bosie.

Who didn't read it.

Claimed to have not read it and thrown it on the fire and then later claimed not even to have received it.

That was in a later court case.

I quite agree.