"I thought life was going to be a brilliant comedy, and you were to be one of the many graceful figures in it."

While imprisoned in 1895-7 for "gross indecency", the brilliant poet and playwright Oscar Wilde wrote a long, impassioned letter to his estranged young lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. Later published as De Profundis, Wilde's letter describes the unbearable pains and blissful pleasures of his love, as well as his views on art, Christianity, and incarceration. Heavily abridged in most editions, De Profundis is here reproduced in full - a telling insight into this charismatic and sensitive author's life and times.