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The Many Enticements of True Crime Biography

These books appeal to a keen fascination with the ‘permeable membrane separating licit and illicit worlds,’ in the words of Patrick Radden Keefe.

Napoleon Sarony via Wikimedia Commons
Oscar Wilde. Napoleon Sarony via Wikimedia Commons
CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

‘Wilde Nights & Robber Barons: The Story of Maurice Schwabe, The Man Behind Oscar Wilde’s Downfall, who with a Band of Aristocrats Swindled the World’
By Laura Lee
Elsewhere Press, 408 pages

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CARL ROLLYSON
CARL ROLLYSON

Mr. Rollyson is the author of The Life of William Faulkner and The Last Days of Sylvia Plath. He has published fourteen biographies and has written about biography for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington, Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New Criterion, and other publications.

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