The Glorious Life and Sad Death of Author Oscar Wilde

Zoom continues to make fascinating library talks from around the world easily available to literature fans here in the Tristate region.

Upcoming on Thursday, Feb. 24, at 7 p.m. is a talk by British biographer Matthew Sturgis, who will be interviewed by Knopf editor Victoria Wilson about his new book, “Oscar Wilde.”

Wilde was a complex often contradictory person, famously homosexual but also married and a father.

Considered one of the greatest writers in the English language, he died of meningitis in 1900 at the age of 46, three years after serving two years in prison for “gross indecency.”

New documents have been discovered about Wilde’s life, and Sturgis used them to create a new, very detailed portrait of the author of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” and “The Importance of Being Earnest.”

Sturgis is British, an art critic who graduated from Oxford. His other biographies have been about Aubrey Beardsley and Paul Bowles.

He and his wife, the art gallerist Rebecca Hossack, live in London.

The Zoom discussion on Feb. 24 will be followed by an opportunity for attendees to ask questions.

This virtual program is free but registration is required at www.hotchkisslibraryofsharon.org/event/Wilde. For more information, go to www.hotchkisslibrary.org or call 860-364-5041.