This was a somewhat suspect conclusion given that none of Wilde’s doctors recorded this malady as a cause of his death. The British journalist and author, Arthur Ransome publicly posited syphilis as the cause of Oscar’s death in a biography he published in 1912. The confrontation set in motion a travesty of justice that culminated with Oscar being sentenced, on May 25, 1895, to two years of “hard labor, hard fare and a hard bed.” In the hushed parlance of Victorian England, Wilde was a “practicing homosexual.” This tragic series of events began when John Sholto Douglas, the Marquess of Queensbury, accused Wilde of committing sodomy with his son, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, and several other young men. Photo taken by Napoleon Sarony (1821-1896)įor decades after Wilde’s death, the common wisdom was that his syphilis progressed into a serious brain infection during and after the time he was imprisoned in Pentonville Prison, Wandsworth Prison, and finally, Reading Gaol (Jail) for “gross indecency” and sodomy.
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