In 1895 Oscar Wilde, the famous poet, wit and author of four of the greatest comedies in the English language (
Lady Windermere's Fan; A Woman of No Importance; An Ideal Husband and
The Importance of Being Earnest), was found guilty of homosexual offences and sentenced to two years hard labour in prison. During his time in Reading Gaol a fellow prisoner, Charles Thomas Wooldridge (a "Sometime Trooper of the Royal Horse Guards"), was hanged on Saturday 7th July 1896 for the murder of his wife. This had a profound effect on Wilde. After his release he exiled himself to France where, either in Berneval or Dieppe, he wrote the poem
The Ballad of Reading Gaol: a cry from the heart against the hideous procedure of capital punishment.
Due to the nature of Wilde's own offence, it was thought expedient at the time to attribute his published works to "The Author of Lady Windermere's Fan". Indeed even Lady Windermere's Fan was "by the Author of Lady Windermere's Fan"! So when his poem was published by Leonard Smithers in 1898, the title page merely stated "By C.3.3." (C was the cell block, 3 the landing and 3 the cell). It was not commonly known, until the seventh printing in June 1899, that C.3.3. was actually Oscar Wilde.
Oscar Wilde died, an outcast, in Paris at the Hotel d'Alsace on Friday 30th November 1900. He is buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery and his tombstone, sculpted by Jacob Epstein with lettering designed and cut by Eric Gill, reads:
