Oscar Wilde led a famously colourful life that included a controversial trial in which he accused the Marquess of Queensberry – who came up with the rules of amateur boxing – of defamation. The Marquess, a Scottish nobleman enraged that Wilde was shacking up with his son, left a card calling Wilde a ‘sodomite’. A furious Wilde – displaying, once again, why writers should never be allowed near real-world decisions – ignored the counsel of his friends and decided to pursue the claim in court. During the trial, the Marquess managed to prove beyond doubt that Wilde was – by the definitions employed in Victorian England – a ‘sodomite’, by hiring private detectives to tail him. One particularly memorable moment from the trial came when Wilde was asked about the morality of his works. Wilde

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