Oscar Wilde reinstated by British library after 130 years

The British Library has honored the late Irish writer Oscar Wilde by reissuing a library card in his name, 130 years after his original card was revoked following his conviction for “gross indecency,” reports the BBC, CE Report quotes Kosova Press.

The renowned novelist, poet, and playwright was banned from the library’s reading room in 1895 due to charges related to homosexual relations, which at the time were considered a criminal offense.

The new card, which will be collected on Thursday by his grandson, writer Merlin Holland, aims to “acknowledge the great injustice and suffering” Wilde endured, said the library.

Holland described the gesture as “a beautiful act of forgiveness, and I’m sure his spirit would be moved and pleased.”

The decision to revoke Wilde’s library access—then part of the British Museum’s Reading Room—was recorded without comment in the trustees’ minutes on June 15, 1895.

At the time, Wilde had already been in prison for three weeks, sentenced to two years of hard labor.
He was convicted after losing a libel suit against Lord Queensberry, who had accused him of homosexuality upon discovering that his son, Lord Alfred Douglas (known as Bosie), was Wilde’s lover.

At the time, library rules mandated that anyone convicted of a crime would lose their reading privileges.