Though unable to turn up anything new on this most well-furrowed ground, Stratmann performs some honourable labours on other portions of her subject's life. But it is small beer. Only Queensberry's part in destroying a genius at the very height of his powers could retain him as a subject of any interest. Does it really matter which voyages he was on as a young sailor? Or that after the trials he became a bicycling enthusiast, possibly riding tandem with a former Sussex county cricket captain?

Stratmann half-heartedly attempts to show that Queensberry might be remembered for his own thought, being as he was somewhat ahead of his time on ideas of marital law and religious doubt. But this is not persuasive. Queensberry was not even a shallow thinker. To read his public or private efforts to think is like watching a chimpanzee holding a volume of Kant. A profound and serious thing may be in his hands, but he has no idea what to do with it.

Stratmann manages the minefield of major sources judiciously, rightly distrusting several key witnesses. But she is wrong to quote wholly uncritically from Wilde's prison letter De Profundis or to quote from André Gide and even Frank Harris with something like trust.

Nevertheless it is an admirable stab at rescuing a wretched and awful man. Perhaps the best summary is one which Stratmann quotes. The Sporting Times wrote on Queensberry's death: "It is not for us here to inquire into the workings of his peculiar mind. It had a craving for something; it knew not what."