De Profundis by Oscar Wilde, Fiction, Literary, Classics, Literary Collections

De Profundis (Latin: “from the depths”) is a letter written by Oscar Wilde during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, to “Bosie” (Lord Alfred Douglas).

De Profundis does not resemble any of the other works that made Wilde famous; and it’s a work that often seems to make critics uncomfortable. Perhaps justly so: in the end it’s a response to Wilde’s imprisonment for homosexuality. In our modern context, that makes the work easy to look away from — but it also speaks to things that concern and disturb many people, even today.