Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol: A Mystery (2 page)
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Authors: Gyles Brandreth
Tags: #Historical Mystery, #Victorian
Copyright © Gyles Brandreth 2012
The right of Gyles Brandreth to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.
All characters in this publication – other than the obvious historical figures – are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-84854-529-8
John Murray (Publishers)
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
For Michèle
Table of Contents
Other Books in the Series and Praise
Principal characters in the narrative
Introduction: Dieppe, France, 24 June 1897
2. 27 May–4 July 1895: Pentonville
3. 4 July–18 November 1895: Wandsworth
4. 20 November 1895: Clapham Junction
5. 21 November 1895: Warder Stokes
6. 21 November 1895: Dr Maurice
7. 21 November 1895: Warder Braddle
10. ‘It brings bad luck to kill a spider’
Interlude: Dieppe, France, 24 and 25 June 1897
Conclusion: Dieppe, France, 25 June 1897
In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In a burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.
And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.
And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
(1897)
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
Oscar Wilde and the Murders at
Reading Gaol
Drawn from the previously unpublished
papers of Robert Sherard (1861–1943),
Oscar Wilde’s first and most prolific biographer
Author’s Note
My name is Robert Sherard and I was a friend of Oscar Wilde. I met him first in Paris in the spring of 1883. He was twenty-eight years old and already famous – as a poet, wit and raconteur, as the pre-eminent ‘personality’ of his day. I was twenty-two, an aspiring poet, a would-be journalist, and quite unknown. Oscar and I met for the last time, again in Paris, in 1900, not long before his untimely death at the age of forty-six. During the intervening seventeen years I kept a journal of our friendship.
Oscar Wilde and I were not lovers, but I knew him well. Few, I believe, knew him better. In 1884, I was the first friend he entertained after his marriage to Constance Lloyd – the loveliest of women and the most cruelly used. In 1895, following his incarceration, I was the first to visit him in prison. It was in a letter from gaol that my friend did me the signal honour of describing me as ‘the bravest and most chivalrous of all brilliant beings’. In 1897, on his release, I travelled to meet him in France. In 1902, I tried to do justice to his memory as his first biographer.
The book that you are holding is one of six volumes I have compiled covering hitherto unknown aspects of the extraordinary life of Oscar Wilde. This volume, in particular, describes episodes from his darkest years, and for that reason, at the outset, it is worth reminding the reader that, before his downfall and imprisonment, Oscar Wilde was a happy person. Indeed, happiness was the essence of the man. Oscar Wilde was
fun
– fun to be with, fun to know. He loved life: he
relished
it. ‘The only horrible thing in the world is
ennui
,’ he said. ‘That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness.’ He loved colour and beauty. ‘To me beauty is the wonder of wonders,’ he declared. He loved laughter and applause. When a friend suggested to him that the reason he wrote plays was a desire for immediate applause, he agreed. ‘Yes, the immediate applause . . . What a charming phrase! The immediate applause . . .’ He loved the English language. He loved to use it. He loved to play with it. He savoured words like ‘vermilion’ and ‘narcissus’. He took much pleasure in letting a name like ‘Sebastian Atitis-Snake’ – or a title like ‘The Marquess of Dimmesdale’ – roll off his tongue; none in saying, baldly, ‘John Smith’ or ‘The Duke of York’. He had his own way with words. Whatever annoyed him, he described as ‘tedious’. Whatever pleased him, he called ‘amazing’.
When I wrote my original account of Oscar’s life I told the truth – but not the whole truth. A short while before his death, I revealed to my friend that I planned to tell his story after he was gone. He said: ‘Don’t tell them everything – not yet! When you write of me, don’t speak of murder. Leave that a while.’ I have left it until now. I have been preparing these volumes during the winter of 1938 and the spring and summer of 1939. I am old and the world is on the brink of war once more. My time will soon be up, but before I go I have this final task remaining – to tell everything I know of Oscar Wilde, poet, playwright, friend, detective . . . avenging angel.
The material that follows is based on Oscar’s own account of what occurred during the twenty-five months between 25 May 1895 and 25 June 1897. What you are about to read he told me in the late summer of 1897. Three chapters – the Introduction, the Interlude and the Conclusion – are written entirely by me. The rest is Oscar’s own narrative and, for the most part, I have been able to use his own words because I took them down (as best I could) at his dictation – directly onto my new Remington typewriter. It was to me that Oscar remarked, ‘The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.’
RHS
September 1939
Principal characters in the narrative
At the Café Suisse, Dieppe, France, July 1897
Sebastian Melmoth
Dr Quilp
At Reading Gaol, Berkshire, England
,
November 1895–May 1897
Oscar Wilde, Prisoner C.3.3.
Eric Ryder, Prisoner C.3.1.
Achindra Acala Luck, Prisoner C.3.2.
Joseph Smith, Prisoner C.3.4.
Sebastian Atitis-Snake, Prisoner C.3.5.
Tom Lewis, Prisoner E.1.1.
Charles Thomas Wooldridge, prisoner
executed on 7 July 1896
Richard Prince, Prisoner A.2.11.
Constance Wilde
Colonel H. B. Isaacson, Governor of Reading Gaol
until July 1896
Major J. O. Nelson, Governor of Reading Gaol
from July 1896
The Reverend M. T. Friend, Chaplain of
Reading Gaol
Dr O. C. Maurice, Surgeon at Reading Gaol
Warder Braddle
Warder Stokes
Warder Martin
Wardress from E Ward
Prologue
London, 25 May 1895
From the
Star
, final edition
OSCAR WILDE GUILTY
Sentenced to 2 years’ hard labour
Jubilant scenes in street
At the end of a four-day trial at the Old Bailey, Oscar Wilde, the celebrated playwright, was tonight found guilty on seven counts of gross indecency and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour.
Addressing the court, the trial judge, Mr Justice Wills, 77, declared, ‘It is the worst case I have ever tried.’ The judge said it was impossible to doubt that Wilde, 40, had been at the centre of ‘a circle of extensive corruption of the most hideous kind among young men’. Passing the severest sentence allowed by law, he said, ‘In my judgement it is totally inadequate for such a case as this.’
In the dock, the guilty man was seen to sway as sentence was passed and called out to the judge, ‘And I? May I say nothing, my lord?’ Mr Justice Wills gestured to the warders standing at the side of the dock to take the prisoner away. Wilde, white-faced, appeared to stagger before being escorted to his cell beneath the courtroom. He was then taken to Newgate Prison near by, where the warrant authorising his detention was prepared, and later, by prison van, to Pentonville Prison in north London.
Outside the Old Bailey, the news of the guilty verdict was greeted with scenes of jubilation. There was loud applause and cheering from the crowd that had gathered and, when the detail of the sentence reached them, a small group of street women danced a jig in the gutter, one of them shouting, ‘Two years is too good for ’im.’ Another provoked laughter saying, ‘’E’ll ’ave ’is ’air cut regular now.’
