"Enthralling . . . Far from evil, Queensbury as Stratmann presents him is definitely sympathetic, perhaps even admirable."—Booklist , starred review
"Queensbury—or John Sholto Douglas was a violent bully and a sadist. Author Linda Stratmann acknowledges these unpleasant characteristics which suggest mental imbalance in her book The Marquess of Queensbury - Wilde's Nemesis which is certain to be popular among Wildean aficianados . . . But Stratmann as apoloist makes a care for tolerance and she certainly gives us a man we had never thought of before."—Richard Edmonds, The Western Mail
Western Mail (Cardiff) - Richard Edmonds
"Linda Stratmann's superbly researched and masterfully written new biography brings to vivid and compassionate life the story of the mad, bad (and rather sad) John Sholto Douglas, Marquess of Queensberry and nemesis of Oscar Wilde."—Neil Mckenna, author of The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde
"Deft and diligently researched."—D J Taylor, Wall Street Journal (Europe)
Wall Street Journal (Europe) - DJ Taylor
"A thorough but bleak catalogue of his life."—Rory Knight Brice, Country Life
Country Life - Rory Knight Bruce
Linda Stratmann has written a new biography of the Marquess and his times with valuable information which helps to put the whole complicated chiaroscuro into perspective. This book emphasises aspects of the marquess that have not been dealt with before.” —Ulick O’Connor, Irish Sunday Independent
Irish Sunday Independent - Ulick O'Connor
‘As one reads, with great enjoyment, this impeccably researched study, one is reminded once again of The Picture of Dorian Gray and the words of the painter, Basil Hallward. 'Every portrait that is painted with feeling', he says, 'is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.'’—Jonathan Barnes, TLS
"We recall the Marquess of Queensberry as one of the great cardboard villains of Victorian culture—red-faced, stick-waving, crazed. This book reveals the corporeal man, a free-thinker wracked by comprehensible agonies. Linda Stratmann has analysed the bad blood of the Queensberry family with a haematologist’s rigour, deepening our understanding of everyone caught up in the Wilde case."—Matthew Sweet
More than just a biography, this is a brilliant portrait of an age in which homosexuality was beyond the pale, yet public fisticuffs and violent assaults in the streets were part and parcel of normal life . . . An irresistible page-turner, this biography combines high passion, violence, tragedy and farce.”—Robert Carver, The Tablet
The Tablet - Robert Carver
'A fascinating, challenging defense of the man who caused Oscar Wilde’s downfall.'—Sunday Times
Booklist , starred review
The Herald
The Herald - Lesley McDowell
The Sunday Times
Sunday Times - Peter Carey
History remembers the ninth Marquess of Queensberry as a mad crank and Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) as a martyr. Popular historian and mystery author Stratmann ("Frances Doughty Mysteries") sets out to restore the reputation of the Scottish peer and sportsman, known as "Q," who played a role in creating the rules that tamed boxing. Embittered by a miserable marriage, John Sholto Douglas (1844–1900) became a public crusader against Christianity and marriage. When Wilde took up with Douglas's son Alfred ("Bosie"), two men who believed the conventions of society did not apply to them confronted each other. Wilde, at the height of his career as a playwright, the toast of the West End, recklessly sued the father for describing him as "posing as a somdomite [sic]." The proceedings led to Wilde's sentence to hard labor for "gross indecency." Neither man recovered from the scandal. VERDICT This prolonged look at the unappealing and combative Douglas does nothing to overturn the traditional view. The book would have benefited from a "life and times" approach, particularly in the area of homosexuality, since few people then really understood what a "somdomite" did. (Q himself had learned much having come of age in the navy.) This book is only for committed Wildeans.—Stewart Desmond, New York
A straightforward attempt to rehabilitate Oscar Wilde's tormentor as a family man. British author and crime novelist Stratmann (Greater London Murders , 2010, etc.) certainly fleshes out this highly vilified character and father to Lord Alfred Douglas, aka Bosie, Wilde's lover. Indeed, much of what we know about the ninth Marquess of Queensberry has been learned from his contradictory and "self-justifying" son or other unreliable sources. Was Queensberry's vindictive pursuit of Wilde an understandable expression of paternal protectiveness, or was it an outgrowth of an insidious genetic instability that can be traced to a mad distant cousin? The Queensberry inheritance meant that, at age 14, with the sudden death of his father, the eldest son was set to inherit enormous wealth and vast land in Scotland and England. Queensberry became a naval cadet whose passions, as they had been for his father, were sports and gambling. Yet another trauma occurred at age 21, when he received news that his beloved brother had died in a climbing accident; shortly after, Queensberry married the beautiful Sibyl Montgomery, and though the match yielded children, the parents were disastrously incompatible. Strong-willed to the point of being obsessive, a freethinker ostracized by his peers in Parliament for his outspoken embrace of agnosticism and regarded as somewhat of a crackpot, Queensberry became alarmed at the company kept by his spoiled, imperious third son, Bosie, namely his "unusual friendship" with the notorious Wilde. Indeed, the author deems Bosie a rather worse influence on the elder poet, a lethal mixture of both his parents, who introduced Wilde to the low-class youths that would bring about his downfall. While formal and academic, this portrait presents compelling new evidence of Queensberry's humanity.
