Robbie Ross: Oscar Wilde's Devoted Friend

Perhaps best known as the young man who first seduced Oscar Wilde and at the end acted as Wilde's devoted and able literary executor, Robbie Ross achieved something his lover appeared incapable of - maintaining a firm position within the establishment while living an openly homosexual life, at a time when that was all too often a recipe for disgrace or prison. Ross was a remarkable character - writer, critic, art dealer and administrator, and a pivotal figure on the London literary and artistic scene from the mid-1890s to his premature death towards the end of the First World War. This fascinating portrait of a chameleon figure - at once radical and conservative - gives a vivid picture of life in London at the turn of the 19th century. A favourite of the Asquiths, Robbie was a regular guest both at Downing Street and at their country homes; a champion of the Sitwells, he nonetheless managed to remain popular with the Bloomsbury group. A friend of Aubrey Beardsley, William Rothenstein, Max Beerbohm, he was Trustee of the Tate, Valuer of Pictures for the Inland Revenue and advisor to the National Gallery in Melbourne. Above all he was Wilde's devoted friend, and his ashes years later were placed in Oscar's tomb as he had always wished.… (more)