Written from Wilde's prison cell at Reading Gaol to his friend and lover Lord Alfred Douglas, "De Profundis explodes the conventions of the traditional love letter and offers a scathing indictment of Douglas's behavior, a mournful elegy for Wilde's own lost greatness, and an impassioned plea for reconciliation. At once a bracingly honest account of ruinous attachment and a profound meditation on human suffering, "De Profundis is a classic of gay literature. Richard Ellmann calls "De Profundis "a love letter... One of the greatest, and the longest, ever written. " This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition contains newly commissioned notes.