Oscar Wilde renewal. He immediately wrote to the Society of Jesus requesting a six-month Catholic retreat; when the request was denied, Wilde wept. "I intend to be received into the Catholic Church before long", Wilde told a journalist who asked about his religious intentions. He spent his last three years impoverished and in exile. He took the name "Sebastian Melmoth", after Saint Sebastian and the titular character of "Melmoth the Wanderer" (a Gothic novel by Charles Maturin, Wilde's great-uncle). Wilde wrote two long letters to the editor of the "Daily Chronicle", describing the brutal conditions of English prisons and advocating penal reform.
Charlotte Melmoth obituary said of her "her talent, particularly in the higher walks of tragedy, was very generally acknowledged. She was much esteemed for her excellent private character." Charlotte Melmoth Mrs Charlotte Melmoth (c. 1749 – 1823) was an 18th-century English actress, the estranged 'wife' of British actor/writer Samuel Jackson Pratt ("Courtney Melmoth"), and known as "The Grande Dame of Tragedy on the Early American Stage" After a mildly-successful stage career in Great Britain and Ireland she emigrated to America in 1793 and became one of the best-known actresses of the late 18th/early 19th century. Little is known of Charlotte's early years;