Madam, - Jerusha McCormack, in her review of Merlin Holland's book Irish Peacock and Scottish Marquess (Books, June 14th) wrote of "Oscar Wilde's scornful post-modern disregard for fact", adding that he preferred "the factitious".
Later she repeats that exemplar of factitious errors where the three trials involving Wilde are concerned: "Victorian high seriousness, embodied in the prosecuting barrister, one Edward Carson, asserted itself as hard-headed (Unionist?) fact."
The fact of the matter is, of course, that Carson acted for the defence - the defence of the Marquess of Queensberry in relation to a charge of criminal libel brought by Wilde. It was Lord Alfred Douglas who advised his father that he was liable "to get seven years' penal servitude for his outrageous libels", indicating how serious it would have been for Queensberry should he have been convicted.
Others prosecuted Wilde for the crime of gross indecency, which by coincidence is being repealed in the Sexual Offences Bill to be concluded this week in the House of Lords. And it applies to Northern Ireland. - Yours, etc.,
JEFFREY DUDGEON,
Mount Prospect Park,
Belfast 9.