Opinion Oscar Wilde’s reader pass reinstated: Perhaps the library ought to pay a fine

Quoting Oscar Wilde is usually an exercise in creative writing, a test of one’s aphoristic talents; if there’s nothing handy, just make something up. In that spirit, here’s how he might have reacted to his British Library reader pass being reinstated 130 years after its cancellation following his conviction for “gross indecency”: “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.” That’s one of those wild(e) witticisms, of uncertain lineage, that prowl the drawing rooms of the internet.

Wilde was convicted in 1895 and sentenced to two years’ hard labour after he fell afoul of the Marquess of Queensberry, who had found out that the Irish playwright and his son, Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, were lovers and accused him of being a “sodomite”. The hardships of imprisonment shaped the emotional and spiritual meditation that was De Profundis, written as a letter to Douglas. Exile, penury and death followed soon after his release. It would take nearly 70 years for consensual homosexual acts between men over 21 to be decriminalised in England, and another half-century for more than 50,000 people convicted of the former offence to be pardoned posthumously. The pardons were issued under a piece of legislation popularly known as the Alan Turing law — after the pioneering computer scientist who was subjected to the cruelty of chemical castration for his sexual orientation.

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Whether Wilde was among those pardoned is a little ambiguous as no names were released. In any case, as his grandson told a UK newspaper, “all it would do is make the British establishment feel better about itself… History’s history, and you can’t start rewriting it.” Nevertheless, an acknowledgement of past injustice and persecution is always welcome, and the same goes for the British Library’s decision. It’s a tad late, though — perhaps the library ought to pay a fine. As Wilde almost definitely said, “The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.”