Only Love You More

A letter from Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas, written in 1897 while imprisoned in Reading Gaol

In 1895, celebrated playwright and poet Oscar Wilde was sentenced to two years of hard labour for “gross indecency” after his romantic relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas became public. Once admired across London for his wit and brilliance, Wilde now found himself in isolation, stripped of his freedom, family, and reputation.

During his final months in prison, Wilde was granted permission to write a letter as a private reckoning. The result was De Profundis, a work of emotional and intellectual clarity addressed to Douglas. What begins in bitterness becomes a quiet reflection on love, regret, and self-destruction.

Their relationship was intense and destructive. Wilde lost his reputation, his freedom and his family. Yet in this letter, he does not disown the love that led him there. Instead, he reflects with painful honesty to understand the depth of his feelings and the consequences of giving so much of himself away.

After long and fruitless waiting, I have determined to write to you myself.

Our ill-fated and fateful friendship has lasted too long for me not to make some attempt to record it.

I must say to myself that I ruined myself for you…

I was always a man who gave his love

without any reservation, without any condition.

I adored you blindly, madly, insanely.

You were the absolute ruin of my life.

And I only love you more for it.

Oscar Wilde