Oscar Wilde first hanging at Reading in 18 years. From Wooldridge's hanging, Wilde later wrote "The Ballad of Reading Gaol". Wilde was not, at first, even allowed paper and pen but Haldane eventually succeeded in allowing access to books and writing materials. Wilde requested, among others: the Bible in French; Italian and German grammars; some Ancient Greek texts, Dante's "Divine Comedy", Joris-Karl Huysmans's new French novel about Christian redemption "En Route", and essays by St Augustine, Cardinal Newman and Walter Pater. Between January and March 1897 Wilde wrote a 50,000-word letter to Douglas. He was not allowed to send it, but was
Oscar Wilde which to be ashamed. Carson, a fellow Dubliner who had attended Trinity College, Dublin at the same time as Wilde, cross-examined Wilde on how he perceived the moral content of his works. Wilde replied with characteristic wit and flippancy, claiming that works of art are not capable of being moral or immoral but only well or poorly made, and that only "brutes and illiterates," whose views on art "are incalculably stupid", would make such judgements about art. Carson, a leading barrister, diverged from the normal practice of asking closed questions. Carson pressed Wilde on each topic from every angle, squeezing