Editing Oscar Wilde (section)

=== Exile ===
{{see also|The Ballad of Reading Gaol|l1=''The Ballad of Reading Gaol''}}
[[File:Oscar Wilde's visiting card (as Sebastian Melmoth).jpg|thumb|Oscar Wilde's [[visiting card]] after his release from gaol]]
Though Wilde's health had suffered greatly from the harshness and diet of prison, he had a feeling of spiritual renewal. He immediately wrote to the [[Society of Jesus]] requesting a six-month Catholic retreat; when the request was denied, Wilde wept.{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|pp=841–842}} "I intend to be received into the Catholic Church before long", Wilde told a journalist who asked about his religious intentions.<ref>Pearce, Joseph [https://books.google.com/books?id=TedJfEcWpokC The Picture of Dorian Gray (Introduction)] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160508171715/https://books.google.com/books?id=TedJfEcWpokC&dq |date=8 May 2016}}, p.&nbsp;X, Ignatius Press, 2008.</ref>

He spent his last three years impoverished and in exile. He took the name "Sebastian Melmoth", after [[Saint Sebastian]] and the titular character of ''[[Melmoth the Wanderer]]'' (a [[Gothic fiction|Gothic novel]] by [[Charles Maturin]], Wilde's great-uncle).{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=842}} Wilde wrote two long letters to the editor of the ''[[Daily Chronicle (United Kingdom)|Daily Chronicle]]'', describing the brutal conditions of English prisons and advocating [[penal reform]]. His discussion of the dismissal of Warder Martin for giving biscuits to an anaemic child prisoner repeated the themes of the corruption and degeneration of punishment that he had earlier outlined in ''[[The Soul of Man under Socialism]]''.{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|pp=847–855}}

Wilde spent mid-1897 with Robert Ross in the seaside village of [[Berneval-le-Grand]] in northern France, where he wrote ''The Ballad of Reading Gaol'', narrating the execution of [[Charles Thomas Wooldridge]], who murdered his wife in a rage at her infidelity. It moves from an objective story-telling to symbolic identification with the prisoners.{{sfn|Sandulescu|1994|p=308}} No attempt is made to assess the justice of the laws which convicted them but rather the poem highlights the brutality of the punishment that all convicts share. Wilde juxtaposes the executed man and himself with the line "Yet each man kills the thing he loves".{{sfn|Sandulescu|1994|p=310}} He adopted the proletarian ballad form and the author was credited as "C33", Wilde's cell number in Reading Gaol. He suggested that it be published in ''Reynolds' Magazine'', "because it circulates widely among the criminal classes&nbsp;– to which I now belong&nbsp;– for once I will be read by my peers&nbsp;– a new experience for me".{{sfn|Kiberd|2000|p=336}} It was an immediate roaring commercial success, going through seven editions in less than two years, only after which "[Oscar Wilde]" was added to the title page, though many in literary circles had known Wilde to be the author.{{sfn|Mason|1972|pp=408–410}}{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=526}}

Although Douglas had been the cause of his misfortunes, he and Wilde were reunited in August 1897 at [[Rouen]]. This meeting was disapproved of by the friends and families of both men. Constance Wilde was already refusing to meet Wilde or allow him to see their sons, though she sent him money – three pounds a week. During the latter part of 1897, Wilde and Douglas lived together near [[Naples]] for a few months until they were separated by their families under the threat of cutting off all funds.{{sfn|Hyde|1948|p=308}}

Wilde's final address was at the dingy Hôtel d'Alsace (now known as [[L'Hôtel]]), on rue des Beaux-Arts in [[Saint-Germain-des-Prés]], Paris. "This poverty really breaks one's heart: it is so ''sale'' [filthy], so utterly depressing, so hopeless. Pray do what you can" he wrote to his publisher.{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=1092}} He corrected and published ''[[An Ideal Husband]]'' and ''[[The Importance of Being Earnest]]'', the proofs of which, according to Ellmann, show a man "very much in command of himself and of the play", but he refused to write anything else: "I can write, but have lost the joy of writing".{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=527}}

He wandered the boulevards alone and spent what little money he had on alcohol.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=528}} A series of embarrassing chance encounters with hostile English visitors, or Frenchmen he had known in better days, drowned his spirit. Soon Wilde was sufficiently confined to his hotel to joke, on one of his final trips outside, "My [[wallpaper]] and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go".{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=546}} On 12 October 1900 he sent a telegram to Ross: "Terribly weak. Please come".{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=1119}} His moods fluctuated; [[Max Beerbohm]] relates how their mutual friend [[Reginald Turner|Reginald 'Reggie' Turner]] had found Wilde very depressed after a nightmare. "I dreamt that I had died, and was supping with the dead!" "I am sure," Turner replied, "that you must have been the life and soul of the party."<ref>M. Beerbohm (1946), "Mainly on the Air"</ref>{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=1213}} In early 1900 in Sicily, Oscar Wilde became involved in a relationship with the 15 year old Giuseppe Loverde.<ref name="Trials" />