'A fascinating, challenging defense of the man who caused Oscar Wilde's downfall.'-
Sunday Times * Sunday Times *
Deft and diligently researched.-D J Taylor,
Wall Street Journal (Europe) -- DJ Taylor * Wall Street Journal (Europe) *
More than just a biography, this is a brilliant portrait of an age in which homosexuality was beyond the pale, yet public fisticuffs and violent assaults in the streets were part and parcel of normal life . . . An irresistible page-turner, this biography combines high passion, violence, tragedy and farce.-Robert Carver,
The Tablet -- Robert Carver * The Tablet *
Here he is at last: Wilde's nemesis, pictured in the round. Linda Stratmann gives a complete and compelling portrait of this complex, fearsome and fascinating figure.-Gyles Brandreth
-- Gyles Brandreth
We recall the Marquess of Queensberry as one of the great cardboard villains of Victorian culture-red-faced, stick-waving, crazed. This book reveals the corporeal man, a free-thinker wracked by comprehensible agonies. Linda Stratmann has analysed the bad blood of the Queensberry family with a haematologist's rigour, deepening our understanding of everyone caught up in the Wilde case.-Matthew Sweet -- Matthew Sweet
Linda Stratmann's superbly researched and masterfully written new biography brings to vivid and compassionate life the story of the mad, bad (and rather sad) John Sholto Douglas, Marquess of Queensberry and nemesis of Oscar Wilde.-Neil Mckenna, author of
The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde -- Neil McKenna
This portrait presents compelling new evidence of Queensbury's humanity.-Kirkus
* Kirkus Reviews *
Enthralling . . . Far from evil, Queensbury as Stratmann presents him is definitely sympathetic, perhaps even admirable.-
Booklist, starred review * Booklist *
A thorough but bleak catalogue of his life.-Rory Knight Brice,
Country Life -- Rory Knight Bruce * Country Life *
Queensbury-or John Sholto Douglas was a violent bully and a sadist. Author Linda Stratmann acknowledges these unpleasant characteristics which suggest mental imbalance in her book
The Marquess of Queensbury - Wilde's Nemesis which is certain to be popular among Wildean aficianados . . . But Stratmann as apoloist makes a care for tolerance and she certainly gives us a man we had never thought of before.-Richard Edmonds,
The Western Mail -- Richard Edmonds * Western Mail (Cardiff) *
Linda Stratmann has written a new biography of the Marquess and his times with valuable information which helps to put the whole complicated chiaroscuro into perspective. This book emphasises aspects of the marquess that have not been dealt with before. -Ulick O'Connor
, Irish Sunday Independent -- Ulick O'Connor * Irish Sunday Independent *
Stratmann's deeply researched biography presents a much more nuanced portrait, Queensberry emerging as Dr Jekyll as well as Mr Hyde . . . More than just a biography, this is a brilliant portrait of an age in which homosexuality was beyond the pale, yet public fisticuffs and violent assaults in the streets were part and parcel of normal life . . . An irresistible page-turner, this biography combines high passion, violence, tragedy and farce.-Robert Carver,
The Tablet -- Robert Carver * The Tablet *
'As one reads, with great enjoyment, this impeccably researched study, one is reminded once again of
The Picture of Dorian Gray and the words of the painter, Basil Hallward. 'Every portrait that is painted with feeling', he says, 'is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.''-Jonathan Barnes,
TLS -- Jonathan Barnes * TLS *
