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
Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde criminal charges against Wilde, with the second reaching no verdict and the third resulting in a conviction and sentence to hard labour. "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde" was staged Off-Broadway at the Greenwich House, and received two critically acclaimed stagings in Los Angeles: one at the Mark Taper Forum in 1998 and the other by director Susan Lee at the Eclectic Theatre in 2009. Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde is a 1997 play written by Moisés Kaufman. It deals with Oscar Wilde's three trials on the