Ardythe Ashley is the author of the novels The Christ of the Butterflies and In The Country of the Great King. While researching The Return of the Century she found herself in the Library of the British Museum reading the letters Oscar Wilde wrote in his dank cell in Reading Gaol to Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie), later published as De Profundis. "I'm sorry, Madam," came the firm-but-not-unkind voice of a white-gloved librarian, "but it is not permitted to weep upon the manuscripts." In addition to being a writer, Ashley is a retired psychoanalyst and forever a New Yorker (at heart).