Matthew Sturgis

Matthew Sturgis
Matthew Sturgis has been called, in the Times Literary Supplement, ‘the greatest chronicler of the 1890s we have ever had.’ An historian and biographer, he is the author of acclaimed lives of Aubrey Beardsley and Walter Sickert, as well as Passionate Attitudes, a history of the English Decadence of the 1890s, and Bon Mots & Grotesques, an anthology of the wit and wisdom of Aubrey Beardsley.
His major biography of Oscar Wilde, Oscar: A Life was published by Head of Zeus in 2018 (and by Knopf, in the USA, in 2021). Hailed as ‘the best modern biography of Wilde’ (in the Evening Standard) it was shortlisted for the 2018 Wolfson History Prize.
Subsequent Wilde-related projects have been a facsimile edition of Oscariana (Head of Zeus), a collection of Wilde’s epigrams compiled by Wilde himself, and Wildeana (Riverrun, 2020), an anthology of previously uncollected anecdotes, apothegms and letters
His other historical works include a study of Biblical archaeology, It Ain’t Necessarily So; a history of Hampton Court Palace; and The Chronicles of Downton Abbey – all to tie in with major TV series; as well as When in Rome (2011) a ground-breaking study of Rome as a tourist destination over the past two millennia – a Daily Telegraph ‘History Book of the Year’.
He has contributed book reviews to the TLS and the Daily Telegraph, art-criticism to Harpers & Queen, and football reports to the Independent on Sunday. He is an Honorary Patron of the Oscar Wilde Society and contributes reviews to their journal The Wildean. He lectures and broadcasts regularly about Wilde and 1890s.