-
Access Our
Best Book Club
Books of 2025!
A Novel in Five Acts
by Louis Bayard
From the bestselling author of The Pale Blue Eye, Louis Bayard, comes Atonement meets The Paris Wife, a brilliantly original, profoundly empathetic story about Oscar Wilde's wife Constance and their two sons in the aftermath of the famous playwright's imprisonment for homosexuality, told against the backdrop of Victorian England and World War I.
In September of 1892, Oscar Wilde and his family retreated to the idyllic Norfolk countryside for a holiday. His wife, Constance, has every reason to be happy: two beautiful sons, a stellar reputation as an advocate for progressive causes, and a delightfully charming and affectionate husband and father, who is perhaps the most famous man in England. But as an assortment of houseguests arrive, including an aristocratic young wannabe poet named Lord Alfred Douglas, Constance gradually—and then all at once—comes to see that her husband's heart is elsewhere and that the growing intensity between the two men threatens the whole foundation of their lives.
The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts revolves around that fateful summer: what happened, and what might have been. When it was exposed, Oscar's affair with Lord Alfred Douglas—Bosie, as he was known—led to Wilde's imprisonment for homosexuality, and the financial and emotional ruin of his family. In Act Two, Bayard reveals Constance and their sons, Cyril and Vyvyan, in exile, forced to sell their possessions, leave England, and hide their identities. Act Three, from the perspective of Cyril, brings readers into the French trenches of World War I, where Cyril must grapple with the kind of man he wants to become, while Act Four reveals Vyvyan in London, years after the war, searching for answers from those who knew his parents. And in a brilliant act of the imagination, Act Five brings the entire cast back together in a surprising, poignant, and tremendously satisfying tableau.
With Louis Bayard's trademark sparkling dialogue, paired with his deep insight into the lives and longings of all his characters—and based on real events—The Wildes could almost have been created by Oscar Wilde himself: lightly told but with hidden depths, it is an entertaining and dramatic story about the human condition.
"Bayard turns the Wilde family's tragedy into an engrossing, eternally relevant fable of fame, scandal, and love." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[An] inspired outing...Bayard's superior gifts at evoking the past are on full display, and he makes it easy for readers to sympathize with his characters. Historical fiction fans will love this poignant tale." —Publishers Weekly
"What was lost to history Louis Bayard has brilliantly brought to life: the wit, charm, tragedy and tenderness of Wilde's family. Wonderfully researched, beautifully crafted, movingly told, The Wildes is a treasure to read." ―Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less and Less Is Lost
"In this witty, poignant, and richly imagined 'novel in five acts,' Louis Bayard takes us past the sordid scandal of Oscar Wilde and his nemesis-lover Bosie, the misbegotten libel trial that brought about Wilde's ruin, and an aftermath of 'dazzling martyrdom' in repressive Victorian England, to focus instead on Wilde's wife Constance and their sons Vyvyan and Cyril. The Wildes is a boldly audacious re-visioning of the martyrdom of Oscar Wilde, one which would have astonished Wilde himself." ―Joyce Carol Oates, award-winning poet and novelist
"It requires a novelist of great audacity to dare to attempt to bring Oscar Wilde back to life, and it requires a novelist of great skill, to say nothing of wit, to manage the feat persuasively. Happily, Louis Bayard is both of those novelists...I read The Wildes in an improbable state of breathless suspense, so wonderfully well has Bayard presented us with real people pressing, often excruciatingly, toward fateful decisions. This is an intoxicatingly gorgeous novel." ―Benjamin Dreyer, New York Times bestselling author of Dreyer's English
This information about The Wildes was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Louis Bayard is the critically acclaimed bestselling author of nine historical novels, including Jackie & Me and The Pale Blue Eye, which was adapted into the global #1 Netflix release starring Christian Bale. His articles, reviews, and recaps have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Salon, and the Paris Review. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Author Interview
Link to Louis Bayard's Website
Name Pronunciation
Louis Bayard: LOO-iss BY-erd
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
