On this day, 25 May 1895, libertarian socialist author Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for two years’ hard labour for “indecency”. This graphic biography of Oscar Wilde focuses on perhaps the most important phase of the Irish writer’s life: his two years behind the iron bars and stone walls of the brutal Victorian prison system. Merlin Holland, Oscar Wilde’s grandson, has praised the “quality as well as the sensitivity” of The Season of Sorrow.

With two plays running in London’s West End and at the height of his success, Wilde was convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years hard labour.

There are many biographies of Wilde, but The Season of Sorrow is the first in comics form. It tells the story of Wilde’s suffering under the cruel “silent system” in his own words, taken from his letters and from the memoirs of friends, prison guards, governors, inspectors, and chaplains.

Graphic novel available in store and online.