Franny Moyle (39 page)

An interior shot of Babbacombe Cliff, also taken by Vyvyan.

Constance aged thirty-four, 1892.

Oscar aged thirty-eight, 1892.

Lord Alfred Douglas, or ‘Bosie', taken in 1891 when he was twenty-one. Although Oscar remained loyal and devoted to Constance whilst pursuing other homosexual affairs, his affair with Bosie would have a catastrophic effect on his relationship with Constance.

Constance and Oscar in the garden of Mr and Mrs Palmer in Reading. Constance stands while her friend Jean Palmer is seated on the ground.

A photograph of Oscar, Constance and Cyril taken at the end of their holiday in Felbrigg, near Cromer, summer 1892.

Oscar posed with Bosie during the same session. He had originally asked to spend just one night with the Wildes, however he stayed on at Felbrigg with Oscar after Constance and the children had left.

As this cartoon from early 1895 indicates, Oscar's play
An Ideal Husband
prompted much debate – particularly in the women's press – as to just what might constitute the perfect spouse.

During Oscar's trials, the press had a field day. Vyvyan remembered his mother ‘in tears, poring over masses of press cuttings, mostly from Continental newspapers'.

The
New York Standard
ran this piece in early 1895. The photograph of Constance is the same as that published in January by
The Young Woman
, which Constance herself admitted made her look ‘solemnly tragic'.

Otho, his second wife Mary and their children Hester and Eugene, photographed ‘in exile' with Constance, probably in Switzerland.

Constance in exile. This snap is probably taken on her own Kodak; the annotation is Vyvyan's.