Leonard Smithers that is holy "all" obscene drawings." Smithers ignored Beardsley’s wishes, and continued to sell reproductions as well as forgeries of Beardsley's work. After the trials of Oscar Wilde in 1895, Smithers was one of the few publishers prepared to handle "decadent" literature, such as Wilde's "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" in 1898, and "The Savoy". He went bankrupt in 1900, and died in 1907 from drink and drugs. His naked body was found in a house in Parson's Green on his 46th birthday, surrounded by empty bottles of Dr J. Collis Browne's Chlorodyne. He was buried in an unmarked grave,
The Ballad of Reading Gaol 17 and 3 stanzas. A version with only 63 of the stanzas, divided into 4 sections of 15, 7, 22 and 19 stanzas, and allegedly based on the original draft, was included in the posthumous editions of Wilde's poetry edited by Robert Ross, "for the benefit of reciters and their audiences who have found the entire poem too long for declamation". Wilde entered prison on 25 March 1895, sentenced to two years' hard labour—a punishment that was considered more severe than mere penal servitude. He was first sent, briefly, to Newgate Prison for initial processing, the next week moved to