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
A Conversation with Oscar Wilde that the sculpture "already evokes more favourable response from the public than any other statue I know in London, with the possible exception of Peter Pan" (a much-reproduced statue, the original of which stands in Kensington Gardens). Charles Spencer, chief drama critic of "The Telegraph", while professing his liking for the artist as a person, wrote how he loathed her sculptures. With respect to "A Conversation", he wrote: The sculpture was one of five works or events considered in "The Resurrection of Oscar Wilde: A Cultural Afterlife", along with "the consecration of a window in Wilde's honour in Poet's Corner,