11 CL, 652
12 Harris, 168; CL, 652; Harris, 81.
13 Leverson, Letters to the Sphinx, 41; George Lewis was acting as CMW’s legal advisor, though her old family solicitor was Mr Hargrove.
14 W. B. Yeats to Professor Dowden, 19 May [1895] (Austin).
15 Frederick York Powell to More Adey, 29 April 1895 (Clark). Elizabeth Pennell to A. J. A. Symons, 26 August 1935 (Clark): JMW ‘had no sympathy whatever with that [homosexual] side of Wilde – indeed I used to think he had a puritanical trait in him… Inherited from his mother. But, though he spoke frankly to us, I never heard him say an unkind word on the subject to anyone else.’
16 Hyde, Oscar, 348, gives his age as seventy-seven (and this is often repeated); but Alfred Wills was born on 1 December 1828.
17 Maguire, 52.
18 CL, 827; CL, 814; Percy Douglas promised to repay half of this £150.
19 Anon., Oscar Wilde: Three Times Tried, 415.
20 ‘London Correspondence’, Freeman’s Journal, 27 May 1895.
21 Anon., Oscar Wilde: Three Times Tried, 373–7.
22 Westminster Gazette, quoted in Yorkshire Herald, 28 May 1895.
23 Anon., Oscar Wilde: Three Times Tried, 413.
24 Anon., Oscar Wilde: Three Times Tried, 433.
25 More Adey, to [unknown], draft letter, June 1895, Hôtel de la Poste, Rouen (Clark).
26 Anon., Oscar Wilde: Three Times Tried, 398.
27 ‘London Correspondence’, Freeman’s Journal, 27 May 1895.
28 CL, 872–8; although OW (CL, 814) denied this arrangement, Leverson’s account seems the more reliable.
29 Sherard, Life, 367–8.
30 CL, 650; McKenna, 532, plausibly suggests that this letter was written on the night before the verdict in OW’s second trial.
31 CL, 769.
32 Justice Charles, the judge in the first trial, declared privately that, if his jury had returned a verdict of guilty, he would have sentenced OW to only two months’ imprisonment. Ricketts, 22.
33 Anon., Oscar Wilde: Three Times Tried, 463–4; Hyde, Trials, 339.
Part IX: In Carcere e Vinculis
Chapter 1: The Head of Medusa
1 Reynolds’s Newspaper, 26 May 1895; Belfast News-Letter, 27 May 1895. Anon., Oscar Wilde: Three Times Tried, 466, states that OW was not transferred to Pentonville until the Monday, but the contemporary press reports all appear to confirm that the transfer happened on the Saturday evening.
2 Hyde, Oscar, 378; Hyde describes having seen these entries in the register at Pentonville. The current whereabouts of the register are unknown. It is at neither the National Archives (Kew) nor at the London Metropolitan Archives.
3 Harris, 194, Reynolds’s Newspaper, 26 May 1895; ‘Oscar Wilde in Prison’, Western Mail, 7 June 1895.
4 Michelle Higgs, Prison Life in Victorian England (2007), 45: at Pentonville ‘masks were abandoned in 1853’.
5 George Ives Diary, 12 March 1898, quoted in McKenna, 538.
6 ‘Oscar Wilde in Prison’, Western Mail, 7 June 1895, claimed that OW had succumbed to just such ‘Prison Head’.
7 CL, 1080.
8 Harris, 196.
9 CL, 1045, 1080; Harris, 194; Anon warder, ‘Wilde’s Prison Life’ (Clark); Hyde, Oscar, 380.
10 R. B. Haldane, in Mikhail, 323.
11 ‘Editorial Comments’, Western Mail, 27 May 1895.
12 Coulson Kernahan, ‘Oscar Wilde As I Knew Him’, ts 37–8 (Clark); other expressions of sympathy and regret can be found from John Davidson (Sloan, John Davidson: First of the Moderns, 139); the social reformer Josephine Butler (Jane Jordan, Josephine Butler (2001), 277–8); Mary Berenson (Samuels, Bernard Berenson, 218); Burne-Jones (Ellmann, 450); ‘C.S.M’, Reynolds’s Newspaper, 29 May 1895 (Wildean, 22 (2003), 5–6). See also Mark Samuels Lasner, ‘In Defence of Oscar Wilde’, Wildean, 40 (2012), 2–5; Yasha Bereisner, ‘Oscar Wilde: A University Mason’, at www.freemasons-freemasonry.com; Anne Anderson, ‘Private View’, Wildean, 52 (2018), 10.
13 R. B. Haldane, An Autobiography (1929), 177–9; CL, 653n. Haldane had been a member of the Gladstone Committee, set up by Herbert Asquith in July 1894. Although the committee delivered its report in April 1895, Haldane preserved an interest in prison reform. Ellmann, 456.
14 Haldane to his mother, in McKenna, 540; CMW to Arthur Clifton, in Moyle, 277; PMG, 4 June 1895; Daily Chronicle, 5 June 1895; Asquith to Prison Commissioners, 5 June 1895, in Robins, Oscar Wilde: The Great Drama of His Life, 25.
15 Hyde, Aftermath, 7. Haldane met with Rosebery on the morning of his conference with Wilde’s ‘family’; see McKenna, 540; Harris, 192; Haldane to More Adey, 8 January 1896 (Clark).
16 Maguire, 53–5; RR to LAD, 23 June 1897 (Clark): ‘Before the Queensberry trouble More was not a friend of Oscar’s at all. I do not think he ever liked Oscar particularly. He certainly disapproved of him very much, & I don’t think he had read any of Oscar’s works. He was however very fond of you & admired you very much. Directly Oscar was in low water, he became as fond of Oscar I believe as any friend of Oscar’s could be, because that is More’s nature. Partly owing to this, and for other reasons which I will not enter into, he gave £200 to Humphreys for Oscar’s defence.’
17 Sir Matthew Ridley to Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, 30 September 1895 (PRO). See LAD to Percy Douglas, 11 July 1895 (BL): ‘Do old chap see if you can’t do something about bribing the warders at Pentonville. I hear that much can be done, in the way of getting food et cet. sent in.’
18 Harris, 194, 198: Ellmann, 456; Harris 194, 214; Haldane to Ruggles-Brise, 10 October 1895 (PCOM 8/432 (13629) PRO); Wandsworth Prison, ‘Nominal Register’ (London Metropolitan Archives) OW’s entry can be viewed online at https://search.lma.gov.uk. It does not list his weight, only age (40), height (6.0) and hair colour (‘Drk brown’). It gives his occupation as ‘Author’, his education as ‘Sup[erior]’, his religion as ‘C of E’ and his conviction as ‘Misc’. The other prisoners listed on his page are almost all ‘labourers’, and all were serving shorter sentences; W. D. Morrison to Haldane, 11 September 1895 (PCOM 8/432, PRO); Dr Quinton report to Prison Commissioners, 18 September 1895; Captain Helby to Prison Commissioners (PCOM 8/432, PRO). Helby indicates that OW’s weight on arrival at Wandsworth (4 July) was 175 lbs, and that he had lost only a further 8 lbs by 18 September 1895.
19 Maguire, 54; PMG, 22 August 1895.
20 More Adey, ‘Notes on OW’s ms’ (Clark): ‘O’s answers 6 Sept ’95’.
21 CL, 716.
22 Sherard, SUF, 197–8; the newspaper article that Sherard quotes seems to conflate this visit and the one he made on 23 September 1895.
23 And in August the young poet Hugues Rebell would publish ‘Defense d’Oscar Wilde’ in the Mercure de France, Richard Hibbitt, ‘The Artist as Aesthete’ in Evangelista, ed., The Reception of Oscar Wilde in Europe, 77; LAD to Percy Douglas from Hôtel de la Poste, Rouen, 20 June 1895 (BL).
24 Ellmann, 462; Moyle, 278.
25 Sherard, SUF, 200; Otho Holland Lloyd to Mary Lloyd, 9 September 1895, in R. Hart-Davis, ed., Letters of Oscar Wilde (1962), 872.
26 CL, 715; Otho Holland Lloyd to Mary Lloyd, 9 September 1895, in R. Hart-Davis, ed., Letters of Oscar Wilde, 871–2; it is doubtful that CMW’s letter to OW, from which Otho quotes, would have been delivered to him, as he had already received his allowed quarterly letter (from Otho); see Otho Lloyd to Mary Lloyd, 12 September 1895, in Moyle 279–80; quoted in Sherard, SUF, 201–2.
27 Sherard, SUF, 202–4.
28 CL, 666; Sherard, SUF, 204–6.
29 Maguire, 57; PMG, 24 September 1895; Adela Schuster had promised £250, but the other substantial commitments were £500 from Trelawney Backhouse, a young fantasist, and the same amount from Percy Douglas, who also had no money of his own. Stewart Headlam was, meanwhile, ‘going to write to some people’. Ada Leverson to More Adey, 19 September [1895] (Clark).
30 A. Clifton to Carlos Blacker, 8 October 1895, in Maguire, 58–9.
3
1 W. D. Morrison to Haldane, 11 September 1895 (PRO); McKenna, 545–6.
32 McKenna, 547–8; Sir Matthew Ridley to Haldane, 7 October 1895 (PRO).
33 Dr Gover to Ruggles-Brise, 28 September 1895; Gover followed up his comment about OW not working with ‘London thieves’ by observing, ‘With reference to his matter, I propose shortly to pay another visit to the prisoner, and to submit a recommendation for your consideration.’ Gover’s letter/report of 28 September had been requested by Ruggles-Brise to replace his first letter/report of 23 September. See Robins, 31. Haldane’s suggestion that ‘bookbinding’ might be ‘good work to put Wilde to’ is in Haldane to Ruggles-Brise, 13 September 1895 (PCOM 8/432 (13629) PRO); [anon senior official at Home Office] 1 October 1895, quoted in Robins, 34.
34 Harris, 196.
35 R. H. Sherard to More Adey, 18 October 1895 (Clark); Lily Wilde to More Adey, 18 October 1895 (Clark).
36 The Daily Chronicle began its campaign in 1894 with a series of anonymous articles on prison conditions titled ‘Our Dark Places’. There were some who suspected Rev. Morrison of being the author. It was these articles that prompted the setting up of the so-called ‘Gladstone Committee’ (chaired by the former prime minister’s son, Herbert Gladstone MP) on which Haldane had served. PCOM 8/433 (PRO), quoted in Maguire, 60–1.
37 Robins, 36–8.
38 Harris, 192; W. D. Morrison (chaplain at Wandsworth Prison) to Haldane, 11 September 1895 (PRO).
39 David Nicolson and Richard Bryan, report, quoted in full in Robins, 41–5.
40 Report of Drs D. Nicholson and R. Bryan, 29 October 1895, HO 45/24514 (PRO).
41 Robins, 47; the choice of Reading was made by the prison commissioners.
42 Ellmann, 461; RR to Oscar Browning, 13 November 1895, in Maguire, 62.
43 CL, 722: OW describes himself at the bankruptcy court as ‘handcuffed’ and ‘between two policemen’ – but the contemporary press reports make no mention of handcuffs, and describe his two attendants as ‘warders’, one walking in front, and one behind; Daily News (London), 13 November 1895; Freeman’s Journal, 13 November 1895; Star (Saint Peter Port), 12 November 1895; Reynolds’s Newspaper, 17 November 1895.
44 RR to Oscar Browning, 12 November 1895, in Ellmann, 461n.
45 CL, 757 where the date of his transfer is mistakenly given as 21 November; the incident of the man spitting at OW is in Sherard, SUF, 212.
Chapter 2: The System
1 ‘In the Depths: Account of Oscar Wilde’s Life at Reading. Told by his Gaoler’, Evening News and Evening Mail (London), 1 March 1905, in Mikhail, 328–9; CL, 1002.
2 Peter Stoneley, ‘“Looking at the Others”: Oscar Wilde and the Reading Gaol Archive’, Journal of Victorian Culture, 19 June 2014, 457–80, provides an interesting breakdown of the Reading prison population during the time of Wilde’s incarceration. He was, throughout his stay, the only inmate serving time for a sexual offence with another male.
3 CL, 983; Harris, 197; Gide, Oscar Wilde, 65; F. Harris, Oscar Wilde, His Life and Confessions (1918 edition), 2:606; Harris, 193–4.
4 CL, 983; Ross, ed., Robbie Ross – Friend of Friends, 39.
5 More Adey to LAD; LAD, Oscar Wilde and Myself, 163–4; R. Haldane to M. Adey, 23 January 1896 (Clark).
6 R. Haldane to M. Adey, 23 January 1896 (Clark); CL, 653n.
7 More Adey, draft petition (Clark); O’Sullivan, 63.
8 CL, 721.
9 PCOM 8/433 (PRO); CL, 816–18, 766.
10 CL, 652.
11 OET V, 474–81. The performance took place in a double bill with Romain Collus’s Raphaël, in the hired Comédie-Parisienne theatre on 11 February 1896, with Lina Munte in the title role; CL, 653–4.
12 CL, 652n; RR to More Adey, in Ross, ed., Robbie Ross – Friend of Friends, 39–43.
13 Ross, ed., Robbie Ross – Friend of Friends, 39–43; Robins, Oscar Wilde: The Great Drama of His Life, 53.
14 PCOM 8/433, National Archives (Kew); Frank Harris to More Adey, 4 January 1896 (Clark): Harris has to go to S. Africa ‘for some months’.
15 Harris, 197; Robins, 101; Robins argues convincingly against accepting all the details of Harris’s account, regarding OW’s ear infection.
16 OW to home secretary, 2 July 1896, CL, 656–60.
17 Robins, Oscar Wilde: The Great Drama of His Life, 57–60; Dr Maurice medical report, National Archives (Kew), HO 45/24514; RR to More Adey, [May 1896], in Ross, ed., Robbie Ross – Friend of Friends, 39–43; More Adey, draft petition, November 1895 (Clark); also RR to O. Browning [November 1895] (King’s College, Cambridge); Visiting Committee Book of Reading Prison (Berkshire Record Office); National Archives (Kew) PCOM 8/433; HO 45/24514.
18 Reading Mercury, 16 July 1896, in Hyde, Oscar, 395; ‘In the Depths: Account of Oscar Wilde’s Life at Reading. Told by his Gaoler’, Evening News and Evening Mail, 1 March 1905, in Mikhail, 331; ‘Oscar Wilde’s Prison Life’ ms (Clark).
19 It is sometimes suggested that Isaacson’s removal had been prompted by Home Office concerns about his role in OW’s decline, and was perhaps even initiated by the influence of Frank Harris (see Robins, Oscar Wilde: The Great Drama of His Life, 63). But R. H. Sherard, Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris & Oscar Wilde (1937), 212, demonstrates that his transfer to Lewes had been arranged before the Home Office inquiry into OW’s condition at Reading, and that it was a significant promotion in a stellar career that led from Reading to Lewes, to Brixton and, finally, to the ‘red ribbon of the Prison Service’, Strangeways gaol in Manchester.
Chapter 3: From the Depths
1 Wilfrid Hugh Chesson, ‘A Reminiscence of 1898’, in Mikhail, 376; CL, 854, 667; ‘Oscar Wilde’s Prison Life’ ms (Clark); Robins, Oscar Wilde: The Great Drama of His Life, 103–4.
2 CL, 660n, 743; Robins, 63; CL, 666; Manchester Guardian, 13 October 1914.
3 M. Adey to CMW, 22 September 1896 (Clark); M. Adey to Adela Schuster, 16 March 1897 (Clark); CL, 669; ‘Wilde’s Prison Life’ [anonymous holograph by ‘A Prison Warder’] (Clark).
4 ‘Wilde’s Prison Life’.
5 Rothenstein, Men and Memories I, 311.
6 ‘Wilde’s Prison Life’. The author laments that the fifty or so sheets of paper that he preserved, with OW’s ‘views on almost every conceivable subject, written in his beautiful hand’ were lost ‘in South Africa during the late war’.
7 Sturge Moore, ed., Self-Portrait, 112.
8 ‘In the Depths: Account of Oscar Wilde’s Life at Reading. Told by his Gaoler’, Evening News and Evening Mail, 1 March 1905, in Mikhail, 331.
9 CL, 754.
10 CL, 1048, 174; A. Gide, Recollections of Oscar Wilde (1906), 54–6; in CL, 762, OW suggests that his encounter may have occurred while he was still at Wandsworth.
11 ‘Wilde’s Prison Life’.
12 CL, 887, 830, 976.
13 ‘Oscar Wilde’s Prison Life’; CL, 852–3.
14 CL, 654–5.
15 LAD to RR, 4 June 1896, in Ellmann, 470.
16 LAD to More Adey, 20 September 1896, in Ellmann, 480.
17 LAD, ‘Une introduction à mes poèmes, avec quelques considérations sur l’affaire Oscar Wilde’, La Revue Blanche, 10, no. 72 (1 June 1896), 484–90.
18 CL, 669.
19 CL, 786, 671–2.
20 CL, 819.
21 CL, 728; LAD eagerly supported the scheme, when told of it, hoping that it might be a way of restoring his relationship with OW. He wrote to his brother Percy from Capri, ‘I hope you will see More Adey about poor Oscar’s life interest, it is the only thing in the world left him & the only hold he has over his beastly wife who has behaved infamously. Her sollictors [sic] want to buy it, but it could be secured for £100. If you could possibly afford it, & as the money you offered for the bankruptcy was not required, it would be splendid of you to buy it & give it to me. I of course should give it back to Oscar but it would be an enormous pleasure to me to be able to give it to him as a gift, especially as I fear that the poor fellow has been set against me by M
rs Wilde’s party, George Lewis & Co & others. I think I should die of misery if after all this when Oscar came out there was to be a complete estrangement between us. It is so utterly unjust after all I did & suffered that it seems incredible, but the real truth is that he is (temporarily) mad, & no wonder, both Adey and Ross have now no doubt of it.’ (BL).
22 CL, 704; For the law on divorce, see Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, section 27 (20 & 21 Vict., c. 85).
23 Robins, 93–4. The case was heard in chambers in the Court of Chancery on 1 March 1897; OW was not present.
24 CL, 678.
25 Martin, in Mikhail, 333.
26 RR to Adey, in Ross, ed., Robbie Ross – Friend of Friends, 40.
27 Henry Salt to Edward Carpenter, 7 July 1897, in George Hendrick, Henry Salt, Humanitarian, Reformer, and Man of Letters (1977), 79; Henry Salt, Seventy Years Among Savages (1921), 181–2.
28 Daily News and Leader (London), 11 December 1913, in Mikhail, 325.
29 Sherard, Life, 377–83: Sherard does not name OW’s interlocutor but the possible field is a small one, and the chaplain the most likely candidate; CL, 741–53.
30 Sherard, Life; CL, 750.
31 The full text is at CL, 683–781; the ms is at the BL.
32 CL, 781–2; LAD had been primed by Adey and Ross to expect a letter from OW. On 8 February 1897, he wrote to Adey (from Villa Lucullo, Rome):
‘I look forward without excitement to Oscar’s letter. Indeed I wonder he writes. What he can have to say to me unless one thing I cannot understand, & if he is going to abuse me I would rather not see it. In all his life he has never written me a letter that was unkind or at least unloving and to see anything terrible in his writing written directly to me would almost kill me. However he must do as he pleases, & I will write again only what I think will be agreeable to him. Please let me know if possible by return –
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