![]() The show celebrated the centenary of the posthumous publication of De Profundis, the very long letter Wilde wrote from his cell to Alfred Douglas. More than a hundred and twenty years later I rode the Great Western Railway from London to the city of Reading to view a major exhibition on Wilde at the only recently shut down prison. Wilde had dared to sue the Marquess of Queensbury, father of his lover Lord Alfred Douglas, for libel after Queensbury had publicly accused him of being a “Somdomite.” The resulting trial produced evidence of Wilde’s other homosexual activity and two more trials, attended by massive publicity, resulted in his conviction on a charge of “gross indecency.” ![]() On May 25, 1895, the celebrated playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde entered Reading Gaol (as “jail” is spelled in British English) to serve two years’ hard labor for loving men instead of women. ![]()
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