Merlin Holland
Dorian Gray: a step too far?

This autumn the Petit Palais is opening a major Oscar Wilde exhibition for which the writer’s grandson Merlin Holland is the main advisor. Invited by the CCI, he will give a lecture this evening questioning whether it was Wilde's homosexuality alone that brought him down. Looking into the storm of protest engendered by the publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the banning of Salomé from the stage, Merlin Holland suggests that the motives for destroying Wilde were far more complicated than at first seem apparent.

Image Merlin Holland: ©Ed Wright Images