After prison, Wilde lived in France and Italy, writing The Ballad of Reading Gaol and fragments of plays. He reunited temporarily with Bosie, and was faithfully supported by Robbie Ross. Constance and the boys led a somewhat itinerant life until her death following after an operation for spinal paralysis. Some scholars now believe she had undiagnosed multiple sclerosis. During her separation from Wilde, Constance had told her friend Georgina Mount Temple “Tennyson was right, although I used not to think so, when he said, ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved’”. Wilde’s health declined sharply in 1900 and he died in Paris on 30 November. On his deathbed, he was received into the Catholic Church.
Catalogue for the Auction of the Contents of 16 Tite Street (April 1895)
Queensberry’s legal costs and his own debts bankrupted Wilde. After Wilde’s arrest, the contents of the Wildes’ family home were auctioned on 24 April. Furniture, books, artworks, letters, and Cyril and Vyvyan’s toys were all sold – even their rabbit’s hutch.
From the Julia Rosenthal Collection, by permission of the Board of Trinity College Dublin, TCD Early Printed Book Stacks, OL Safe 5.6
Calling Card for “Mr. Sebastian Melmoth”
After leaving prison on 19 May 1897, Wilde used the alias “Sebastian Melmoth” during his exile. Wilde had been devoted to the young martyr St. Sebastian since his Magdalen days; “Melmoth” came from the undead, homeless protagonist of the Gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), written by Wilde’s great-uncle Charles Maturin.
From the Julia Rosenthal Collection, by permission of the Board of Trinity College Dublin, TCD MS 11437/5/4
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (London: Leonard Smithers, 1898)
Published under Wilde’s prison designation, C.3.3, this first edition of the Ballad sold out within a week. Wilde was inspired by the case of his fellow prisoner Charles Thomas Wooldridge, executed at Reading in 1896 for the murder of his wife, Laura “Nell” Wooldridge.
Magdalen College Library, Magd.Wilde-O. (BAL) 1898
Purchased through the generosity of Mrs Kay Wesley, in memory of her brother George Scott (Magdalen 1953–6)
Wilde’s Death Certificate
Wilde died at the Hôtel d’Alsace in Paris on 30 November 1900. He had suffered from ear problems and migraines since a fall in Reading Gaol, and in autumn 1900 doctors had warned Robbie Ross that Wilde’s health was failing due to overconsumption of alcohol and food. He was initially buried in Bagneux Cemetery but in 1909 Ross, Wilde’s executor, had him reburied in Père Lachaise, where his grave lies today.
From the collection of Michael Seeney