A heart made to be broken

Very useful in modern conversation, Oscar Wilde. Not for the quotable quips — everyone knows those already. His real value comes when you’re trying to guess someone’s sexuality. ‘He can’t be gay,’ someone will say of whoever is under the microscope, ‘he’s married with two kids.’ You hit them with the reply: ‘So was Oscar Wilde.’

It’s hardly surprising that so many people are unaware of Mrs W’s existence, or that those who do tend to forget about her, given her husband’s status as poster boy for the Two Fingers to Convention party. You’d be forgiven for thinking that Oscar was a Victorian Alan Carr, standing in the middle of Piccadilly belting out ‘Sing If You’re Glad To Be Gay’. The truth, of course, is that he sued for libel to hide his homosexuality. To the extent that we do consider the question of his wife, we probably imagine a dowdy old boiler (in modern terms a ‘beard’), dutifully providing a couple of sons but otherwise keeping well out of the way.