The relentless cross-examination and the record of the trial, presented by Holland complete and uncensored, is not only devastating but highlights the fatal cleft between literary license and flourish and forensic exactitude. Under the brutal onslaught of the latter with its relentless probing for a nugget here and a piece there, with which to build the whole, the literary cause falters and ultimately perishes.

“Perhaps he was too clever for his own good”; “hoist by his own petard”; “too clever by half” — these thoughts are unavoidable as one goes through the transcript. In the dock stands the foppish Wilde, confident in his wit and his mastery of the mot juste, his epigrams, able to ‘strike an attitude’ on demand. The prosecutor, Charles Gill, is, in contrast, pedestrian, plodding and utterly dogged. There is much thrust-and-parry here, cat-and-mouse games, Gill biding his time and evaluating every opening. Then comes the definitive moment, when Wilde, too clever for his own good, blithely responds to Gill’s question if he kissed that boy. “No, he was far too ugly,” says Wilde — and seals his fate.

This exchange is, of course, well-known. But what Holland’s book shows is that Wilde was only arrogant and cocky in the first case, his own libel action. As that deflated, he lost his hubris and was soon reduced to whingeing and appealing for help to his own Counsel and even the judge. Gill managed to rattle him much earlier.

The book is astonishingly vivid and has a powerful dramatic balance to it. The entire era is brought alive and it is almost a sense of despair that we watch Wilde literally talk himself into jail and exile.

Musings of a suist in mufti on books, music and film at Bibliophage; Gravity Denied - The Hidden Paw’s Blog at mcavity.com