Edmond Perrier's Victorian Museum

De profundis is a long letter that Oscar Wilde wrote to his young lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, from the prison of Reading, which was published in 1862. Wilde couldn't write a play in these conditions; instead he concentrated on the more typical prison genre which is the letter, and especially the love letter on which he worked between December 1896 and March 1897.

When he wrote “De Profundis”, Wilde was a little bit disppointed with his lover Douglas, and he used this long letter to capture that disapointment as well as the extraordinary attachment he felt for Douglas. Oscar Wilde was also a little boastful in "De profundis", because he compared himself to Christ for example. But, there is also a sense of urgency to say things because there may not be time or opportunity to say them in the future.