The shocking witness statements, previously unseen, were drawn up by employees at Day Russell of the Strand, solicitors for the defence in Wilde's disastrous 1895 legal action against the Marquis of Queensberry. Most of the papers were filed away and never used in court.

While Wilde is remembered today as the dandy-about-town, sporting bespoke suits and habitually wearing a green carnation in his buttonhole, these statements - from chamber-maids, valets, bell-boys and even a lamp-wick seller portray his private life in lurid detail.

Seedy descriptions of Wilde's bedroom are included in the damaging file, which was instrumental in Wilde's downfall and formed the background for one of the most famous cases in British legal history.

Wilde took legal action against the Marquis, father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, after he found a visiting card left by Queensberry at the Albermarle club. It was inscribed with the words: 'For Oscar Wilde posing Somdomite [ sic ]'.

The 52 pages of statements from 32 witnesses have never been published and are hand-written on heavy sheets of paper. They were picked up in a London junk shop for a pittance during the Fifties by a private collector whose widow is now selling them at Christie's on 6 June. The historic bundle, wrapped in pink string, is expected to fetch £12,000.

Among the more sordid details are those revealed by Margaret Cotta, a chambermaid at the Savoy Hotel, a favourite rendezvous for Wilde and his series of young male 'renters'. Describing a prolonged visit to the hotel by Wilde and Alfred Douglas, who was affectionately known as Bosie, Miss Cotta said she found a 'common boy, rough looking, about 14 years of age' in Wilde's bed, the sheets of which 'were always in a most disgusting state... [with] traces of vaseline, soil and semen'.

Instructions were given that the linen should be kept apart and washed separately. Miss Cotta added that a stream of page boys delivering letters were usually kissed by Wilde, who then tipped them two shillings and sixpence for their trouble.

Thomas Venning, a manuscripts specialist at Christie's, said the documents provided a new account of Wilde's undoing and had 'very detailed sexual content which was only mentioned in the trial euphemistically'.

The statements also show Wilde's carefree attitude to discovery. Wallis Grainger, an apprentice electrician from Oxford, told how Wilde took him to a cottage in nearby Goring-on-Thames which he had rented and where he wrote An Ideal Husband.

On the second or third night, said Grainger, Wilde 'came into my bedroom and woke me up and told me to come into his bedroom which was next door... he worked me up with his hand and made me spend in his mouth'. The former butler of the Marquis of Queensberry was in the next room.

On another occasion, during the Goring regatta, Gertrude Simmons, governess to Wilde's two sons, reported seeing him 'holding the arm of a boat boy called George Hughes and patting him very familiarly'. During the same visit she came across a carelessly discarded letter to Wilde from Bosie which was signed 'your own loving darling boy to do what you like with'.

Another statement came from a 20-year-old called Fred Atkins, who Wilde had met at the Café Royale. Atkins said Wilde 'took me to the hairdresser and had my hair curled'. Wilde later took him off to Paris as his secretary, Atkins said. The job involved 'writing out only half a page of a manuscript which took about 10 minutes' after which Wilde 'made improper proposals'.

Queensberry had used detectives to track down a circle of male prostitutes, and some of their statements are among those being sold. Wilde's action against Queensberry opened on 3 April 1895 at the Old Bailey but collapsed with a not guilty verdict. At noon on 5 April, the evidence gathered by solicitor Charles Russell was immediately forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions and Wilde was arrested on a charge of gross indecency.

On 24 May, after two further trials, he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour, which broke his health. After his release he lived abroad as a bankrupt under the pseudonym Sebastian Melmoth. He died in Paris on 30 November 1900.