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“... A certain kind of book on the period makes it seem as though he was everywhere all at once. Matthew Sturgis’s Relative Failures, which offers a biographical portrait of Willie Wilde, as well as of two other siblings of famous men, Mabel Beardsley (sister of Aubrey) and Howard Sturgis (included on the dubious ...”

“... the subject matter. These anti-illustrations have now been collected by Beardsley’s biographer Matthew Sturgis in Bons Mots and Grotesques (Pallas Athene, £12.99), where they appear alongside Beardsley’s own sayings, making a mosaic of a life in miniature. ‘The Climax’ (1893) In 1895 the frisson of scandal around Beardsley’s set turned to ...”

“... as on the outdoor man.’ Sickert enjoyed making pronouncements – his most recent biographer, Matthew Sturgis, calls him ‘a man of strong opinions loosely held’ – and this one should be treated with some scepticism. A more significant factor keeping Sickert indoors was his temperament. A bit-part actor in his early youth, he practised a ...”

“... Willie and Oscar know each other anyway? In the two massive Lives of Wilde, by Richard Ellmann and Matthew Sturgis, Hornung’s name is not mentioned once. Nor is there a single letter to or from Hornung in the equally massive Complete Letters, edited by Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland, and Rupert Hart-Davis. Rowland has a whole chapter on the ...”