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  • On Valentine's Day in 1895, the most famous  playwright in the English speaking world,  

  • Oscar Wilde, presented his new play, The  Importance of Being Earnest, in London at  

  • St. James Theatre. The audience was packed with  celebrities, aristocrats and famous politicians,  

  • eagerly awaiting another triumph from  a man universally heralded as a genius.  

  • At the end of the performance, there wasstanding ovation. Critics adored the play  

  • and so did audiences, making it Wilde's  fourth major success in only three years

  • Yet, only a few short months later, Wilde  was bankrupt and about to be imprisoned.  

  • His reputation was in tatters and his life  ruined beyond repair. It was, as everyone  

  • then and now agreed, a tragedy, the swift fall  of a great man due to a small but fateful slip

  • The story of how Oscar Wilde went  from celebrity playwright to prisoner,  

  • in such a short space of time, has much to  teach us about disgrace and infamy. We don't  

  • have to be acclaimed to understand that Wilde's  poignant tragedy urges us to abandon our normal  

  • moralism and have sympathy for those who  stray, it calls for us to extend our love  

  • not just to those who obviously deserve  it but precisely to those who seem not  

  • to. We talk a lot of what a civilised world  should be like. We might put it like this: a  

  • civilised world would be one in which Oscar Wilde  could have been forgivenand in which those who  

  • make errors of judgement could be treated with  high degrees of sympathy and, even, of kindness.  

  • It would be a world in which we could remember  that good people can at times do bad things –  

  • and should not pay an eternal price for them. Wilde's tragedy began several years earlier,  

  • when he was introduced to a beguiling young  man named Lord Alfred Douglas. Douglas,  

  • known to family and friends as 'Bosie',  was extremely handsome, charming and  

  • arrogant.

  • By 1892, a year after they had met, the two men  

  • had fallen profoundly in love. Although Wilde  was married with two children, he spent much of  

  • his time with Bosie: there was a sixteen year age  gap, Douglas was twenty-four, Wilde forty. They  

  • travelled together, stayed in hotels and  hosted large dinners for their friends.

  • By 1894, the pair were constantly seen together  in public and rumours of their love affair had  

  • spread as far as Bosie's father, the Marquess  of Queensbury. The Marquess was a cruel,  

  • aggressive character, known for inventing  the 'Queensbury Rules' of amateur boxing.  

  • Having decided that Wilde was corrupting his sonhe demanded that the pair stop seeing each other

  • When Wilde refused, Queensbury began to hound  him across London, threatening violence against  

  • restaurant and hotel managers if they  allowed Wilde and Bosie onto the premises

  • Queensbury booked a seat for the opening  night of The Importance of Being Earnest.  

  • He planned to throw a bouquet of rotting  vegetables at Wilde when he took to the stage

  • When Wilde heard about the stunt, he had  him barred from the theatre and Queensbury  

  • flew into a rage. He tried to accost Wilde  after the performance at the Albemarle Club  

  • in Mayfair. When the porters refused to let  him in, he left a calling card which publicly  

  • accused Wilde of having sex with other men. Since homosexuality was illegal and deeply  

  • frowned upon in Victorian society this was a dangerous accusation

  • Seeing no end to Queensbury's bullying behaviour,  

  • Wilde decided to take legal action. By suing  Queensbury for libel, Wilde hoped to clear  

  • his name and put an end to the harassment.

  • When the trial began, Wilde was confident.  

  • He took the stand and gave witty, distracting  answers during his cross-examination

  • Within a few days, however,  

  • the tide had turned against him.

  • It became clear that Queensbury's lawyers  

  • had hired private detectives to uncover an  uncomfortable truth: that both Wilde and Bosie had  

  • hired male prostitutes. Some had even blackmailed  Wilde in the past, successfully extorting  

  • money from him in return for their silence. The trial was hopeless and Wilde withdrew his  

  • case, but events had spiralled beyond his control. Queensbury's lawyers forwarded their evidence to  

  • the Director of Public Prosecutions and Wilde  was soon arrested on charges of gross indecency

  • The legal costs left him bankrupt and  theatres were forced to abandon his plays

  • Wilde's criminal trial began at the Old Bailey  on April 26. He faced twenty-five charges,  

  • all of which surrounded his sexual  relationships with younger men

  • Wilde continued to deny the allegations  and the jury could not reach a verdict,  

  • but when the prosecution were allowed to try Wilde  

  • a second time he was eventually found guilty.

  • The judge said at his sentencing, “It is the worst  

  • case I have ever tried. I shall pass the severest  sentence that the law allows.  

  • Wilde was sentenced to two years' of hard labour.  

  • Inmates in London's Pentonville Prison, where  he was sent, spent six hours a day walking on  

  • a heavy treadmill or untangling old  rope using their hands and knees

  • For someone of Wilde's luxurious background, it  was an impossible hardship. His bed was a hard  

  • plank which made it difficult to fall asleepPrisoners were kept alone in their cells and  

  • barred from talking to one another. He suffered  from dysentery and became physically very frail

  • After six months, he was transferred  to Reading Gaol. As he stood on the  

  • central platform of Clapham Junction, with  handcuffs around his wrists, passers-by began  

  • to recognise the celebrity playwright. They  laughed and mocked. Some even spat at him

  • 'For half an hour I stood  there,' he wrote afterwards,  

  • 'in the grey November rain surrounded byjeering mob. For a year after that was done to me,  

  • I wept every day at the same hour  and for the same space of time.'

  • During his last year in prison,  

  • Wilde wrote an anguished essay, De Profundis:  'I once a lord of language, have no words in  

  • which to express my anguish and my shame…  Terrible as was what the world did to me,  

  • what I did to myself was far more terrible still….  The gods had given me almost everything. But I let  

  • myself be lured into long spells of senseless and  sensual ease…I allowed pleasure to dominate me.  

  • I ended in horrible disgrace. There is only  one thing for me now, absolute humility… I  

  • have lain in prison for nearly two years… I have  passed through every possible mood of suffering…  

  • The only people I would care to be with now  are artists and people who have suffered:  

  • those who know what beauty is, and those who  know what sorrow is: nobody else interests me.' 

  • In May 1897, Wilde was finally released. He set  sail for Dieppe in France the very same day

  • His wife, Constance, had changed her name  and moved abroad with their two sons,  

  • Vyvyan (now 11) and Cyril (12). Wilde would never  see his children again; he missed them every day.

  • Constance agreed to send him money on the  

  • condition that he end his relationship  with Bosie, but only a few months later,  

  • the pair reunited and the money stopped. They moved to Naples and Wilde began using  

  • the name Sebastian Melmoth, inspired by  the great Christian martyr Saint Sebastian  

  • and a character from a Gothic novel  who had sold his soul to the devil

  • They hoped to find privacy abroad, but the scandal  seemed to follow them wherever they went. English  

  • patrons recognised them in hotels and demanded  they be turned away. After Constance stopped  

  • sending money, Bosie's mother offered to pay their  debts if he returned home and the pair once again  

  • parted ways; it proved equally impossible. Scorned by many of his former friends,  

  • Wilde moved to Paris where he lived in relative  poverty. He spent most of his time and money in  

  • bars and cafes, borrowing money whenever  he could and drinking heavily. His weight  

  • ballooned and his conversation dragged. He  was slowly inebriating himself to death

  • When a friend suggested he try to write another  comic play, he replied: “I have lost the  

  • mainspring of life and art […] I have pleasuresand passions, but the joy of life is gone.” 

  • His final piece of writing, a poem, The Ballad of  Reading Gaol, was published in 1898. The author's  

  • name was listed as 'C.3.3.' – Wilde's cell block  and cell number from his time in the prison

  • Towards the end of 1900, Wilde developed  meningitis and became gravely ill.  

  • A Catholic priest visited his hotel  and baptised him into the church.  

  • He died the following day at the age of 46. 

  • More than a century later, in 2017, a law was  passed to exonerate those who had been convicted  

  • due to their sexuality and Oscar  Wilde received an official pardon  

  • from the UK government. 'It is hugely important,'  declared a government minister, 'that we pardon  

  • people convicted of historical sexual offences  who would be innocent of any crime today.' 

  • Our society has become generous towards  Wilde's specific behaviourbut it  

  • remains moralistic towards a huge number of other peoples   

  • and ways of life 

  • Many of us wouldacross the ageswant to comfort and befriend Oscar Wilde. It's a touching hope,  

  • but one that would be best employed in extending  understanding to all those less talented and less

  • witty figures who are right now facing grave difficulties  

  • and still, deserve compassion. That

  • would be true civilisation and a world in which  Wilde's horrifying downfall had not been in vain.

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On Valentine's Day in 1895, the most famous  playwright in the English speaking world,  

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