Conversations with Wilde. A Fictional Dialogue Based on Biographical Facts

3,5 Stars I like the idea of this book series - to have fictional interviews with famous persons and thus share some interesting biographical facts with the reader. In this case the author is even the grandson of the VIP. Although I'm not sure how much this really helps, since he was born 45 years after the death of Oscar Wilde, and his own father has lived with Wilde only for the first few years of his life and apparently never talked about his father at home after he fell in disgrace. I wasn't familiar with the fact that Oscar Wilde was sent to prison for being gay. So the chapters about his relationships (also to his wife and sons), the trial and his time in prison were very interesting to me. But I was missing info on Oscar Wilde as a writer! About where he got his ideas from, what he wanted to convey with the texts, what reaction it got from the audience of that time... Maybe Merlin Holland thought that there is so much secondary literature out there on each of his novels and plays that he does not need to breach these subjects in this very concise little book. And maybe he is right. But for me this book still felt incomplete.