Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders

by Gyles Brandreth

1884: Oscar Wilde marries Constance Lloyd

  1885: Arthur Conan Doyle marries Louisa ‘Touie’ Hawkins

  1887: Publication of A Study in Scarlet, the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes

  1889: The first meeting of Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle

  1889: Stories by Axel Munthe and Arthur Conan Doyle appear in Blackwood’s Magazine

  1890: Publication of The Sign of Four, the second appearance of Sherlock Holmes

  1890: Publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray

  1890: Axel Munthe opens his medical practice in Rome

  1892: The first performance of Lady Windermere’s Fan in London

  1892: Publication of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

  1893: Publication of ‘The Greek Interpreter’, featuring the first appearance of Mycroft Holmes

  1893: The ‘death’ of Sherlock Holmes in ‘The Final Problem’

  1895: The first performance of The Importance of Being Earnest and the arrest and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde

  1897: Oscar Wilde, released from prison, visits Axel Munthe in Capri

  1897: Arthur Conan Doyle meets Jean Leckie, who becomes his second wife following the death of ‘Touie’ ‘from tuberculosis in 1906

  1900: Death of Oscar Wilde, aged forty-six

  1901: The return of Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles

  1903: Death of Pope Leo XIII, aged ninety-three

  1908: James Rennell Rodd appointed British ambassador to Rome

  1924: Publication of Memories and Adventures by Arthur Conan Doyle, featuring the first account of his friendship with Oscar Wilde

  1929: Publication of The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe

  1930: Death of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, aged seventy-one

  1933: Sir James Rennell Rodd GCB, GCMG, GCVO, PC, elevated to the House of Lords as 1st Baron Rennell

  1938: Publication of Two Englishwomen in Rome 1871-1900 by Matilda Lucas, featuring incidents touched on in Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders

  1941: Death of Baron Rennell, aged eighty-two

  1949: Death of Axel Munthe, aged ninety-one

  2000: The beatification of Pope Pius IX

  2010: Gyles Brandreth unveils the plaque commemorating the first meeting of Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle at the Langham Hotel, London

  * * *

  [1] For the story of my own association with Professor Charcot, see Oscar Wilde and the Nest of Vipers.

  [2] ‘The Pope is of so great dignity and so exalted that he is not mere man, but as it were God, and the vicar of God.’

  [3] ‘Hence the Pope is crowned with a triple crown, as king of heaven and of earth and of the lower regions.’

  [4] ‘He who falls in water does not drown, but he who falls badly will.’