The lack of reporters was a matter of design. On 18 May 1897, Wilde, who spent most of his two-year sentence in Reading Gaol, was quietly transferred to Pentonville. On his release the next day, Wilde was met by More Adey, his friend and editor, and Stewart Headlam, an Anglican vicar who, even though he had never personally met Wilde, had put up bail money on Wilde\u2019s behalf. Once at Headlam\u2019s home, Wilde put on a fresh set of clothes and basked in his freedom. Soon, he was excitedly discussing the many books he had asked people to buy for him, including works by John Keats, Alexandre Dumas and Dante. That evening, Wilde sailed to France and, never to return to Britain, an impoverished existence in exile.<\/p>\n
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It was a bitter conclusion to a life that had so often featured glittering success. Born to Anglo-Irish parents in Dublin in 1854, the youthful Wilde won scholarships both to Trinity College Dublin and to Oxford\u2019s Magdalen College, where he studied classics. In 1882, Wilde gave a lecture tour of North America. Scheduled to last four months, his talks were such a hit that he was away for close to a year. From the eerie philosophical novel The Picture of Dorian Gray <\/i>(1891) to The Importance of Being Earnest <\/i>(1895), a farce considered to be the greatest of his stage plays, his writing displayed his enormous range.<\/p>\n
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Wilde of heart<\/h3>\n
In 1884, Wilde married Constance Lloyd and they had two sons. But soon after his wife\u2019s second pregnancy, Wilde began a short affair with 17-year-old Robert Ross. It was likely Wilde\u2019s first same-sex relationship. The two would remain friends for the rest of Wilde\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>A portrait of Robert Ross, who became a lifelong friend of Oscar Wilde following a brief affair. (Photo by Fine Art Images\/Heritage Images\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Another affair had far more lasting consequences for Wilde. In 1891, he became a friend and lover of Lord Alfred Douglas, a young man 16 years his junior and known as \u2018Bosie\u2019. Unlike Wilde, who managed to keep his homosexuality mostly hidden \u2013 except for themes within his work \u2013 Douglas was far less discreet and frittered away large amounts of money on young men. Douglas was the son of a Scottish peer, the Marquess of Queensberry, who strongly disapproved both of Bosie\u2019s lifestyle and of his relationship with Wilde.<\/p>\n
In 1895, Queensberry visited Wilde\u2019s favourite London club, the Albemarle. In order to provoke Wilde, he left his calling card, which said: \u201cFor Oscar Wilde, posing as a somdomite [sic].\u201d Queensberry was publicly accusing Wilde of homosexuality \u2013a serious charge. Leaving aside the prevailing attitudes of the era, homosexual acts between men in public or private were illegal, and until 1861, could have been punishable by death.<\/p>\n
Acting against the advice of his friends who believed a court case would ruin him, Wilde brought a libel lawsuit against Queensberry. Wilde assured his lawyer that the allegations of homosexuality against him were untrue, and Douglas, who had a difficult relationship with his father, was confident Wilde would win. This confidence was misplaced. Queensberry\u2019s lawyers painted Wilde as a predator and said they could produce several male prostitutes who would testify that Wilde had paid them for sex.<\/p>\n
The judge described Wilde\u2019s punishment as \u2018totally inadequate\u2019 given the seriousness of his \u2018crime\u2019 <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
Queensberry won the case, which ultimately bankrupted Wilde because he became liable for Queensberry\u2019s expenses. Douglas fled to Europe, but Wilde stayed in Britain. A warrant was issued for his arrest. In April 1895, a first trial for \u2018gross indecency\u2019 saw the jury unable to come to a verdict. Following a retrial with a less lenient judge, Wilde was found guilty. Onlookers shouted \u201cshame\u201d at him while he was taken down. On 25 May he was sentenced to two years\u2019 imprisonment with hard labour \u2013 the maximum sentence that could be given. \u2018Gross indecency\u2019 was used to prosecute homosexual acts when sodomy could not be conclusively proven. The judge described his punishment as \u201ctotally inadequate\u201d given the seriousness of his \u201ccrime\u201d. The damage to Wilde\u2019s reputation, at least in his own lifetime, was irreparable.<\/p>\n
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Life as Prisoner C33<\/h3>\n
Wilde was imprisoned, initially at Pentonville, before being moved to Wandsworth and finally Reading Gaol. When being transferred between prisons, he was recognised and had abuse hurled at him. While being forced to wait in the rain on once such occasion, he is said to have remarked: \u201cIf this is the way Queen Victoria treats her prisoners, she doesn\u2019t deserve to have any.\u201d While incarcerated, he had to walk for hours on a treadmill and pick oakum \u2013 an arduous task that involved untwisting old strands of rope. For someone of Wilde\u2019s talents, the lack of reading material may have come as a greater hardship. Literature was initially restricted to the Bible and The Pilgrim\u2019s Progress, <\/i>until RB Haldane sourced books for Wilde while he was investigating prison conditions. Wilde\u2019s incarceration took its toll on his health, too, as he suffered from dysentery and injured his ear during a fall.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>A 19th-century illustration of Reading Gaol, where Wilde spent the majority of his prison sentence. (Photo by: Photo 12\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Wilde was at least able to continue to write in prison. Although he was forbidden from penning poetry or prose, letter-writing was permitted \u2013 with no restrictions on how long the letter could be. Wilde wrote a 50,000-word letter to Douglas, which became known as De Profundis <\/i>(\u2018From the Depths\u2019), in which he discussed both their relationship and his own spiritual development. Wilde\u2019s mother Jane died in 1896. Her request to visit her son in prison before she died was refused, but Wilde later claimed to have seen her apparition in his cell at around the same time as she passed.<\/p>\n
During his time in prison, Wilde underwent a spiritual renewal and intended to convert to Roman Catholicism. On the day of his release, he sent a message to a Jesuit house asking to complete a six-month retreat with them, but this was refused. Realising it would be too difficult now to stay in Britain, he caught a ferry to Dieppe. While he was imprisoned, Constance had taken parental rights away from Wilde. His two sons never saw their father again and their surnames were changed to distance them from the scandal.<\/p>\n
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Wilde briefly resumed his relationship with Douglas in Naples, but he spent his final years almost penniless in France living between the homes of friends and cheap hotels. He spent much of his time in bars and, when he was recognised on the street, endured public humiliation and abuse. His health never truly recovered from his time in prison, and he claimed to have lost his love of writing. The only thing of note that he completed during this time was The Ballad of Reading Gaol <\/i>\u2013 the experiences of a fellow inmate on death row as well as a condemnation of the Victorian penal system. The poem was initially credited to C33 after Wilde\u2019s cell number.<\/p>\n
He wrote many letters to British newspapers condemning British prisons: \u201cThe cruelty that is practised by day and night on children in English prisons is incredible, except to those who have witnessed it and are aware of the brutality of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n
On 30 November 1900, Wilde died in Paris at the age of just 46. His friend Robert Ross and a priest were at his side. He was baptised into the Roman Catholic Church before his death. Wilde\u2019s final illness and death have been attributed to syphilis, but it\u2019s more likely that a reoccurring ear infection \u2013 possibly caused by the injury he suffered in prison \u2013 eventually led to meningoencephalitis.<\/p>\n
In 2017, after the passing of the Turing Law \u2013 named after the gay codebreaker and computer pioneer Alan Turing<\/a> \u2013 Wilde was among more than 50,000 men pardoned for crimes of homosexuality that, thankfully, no longer exist.<\/p>\n
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