Volume 1, Number 11 · January 23, 1964
The Agony of Oscar Wilde
By Sybille Bedford
Oscar Wilde: The Aftermath
by H. Montgomery Hyde
Farrar Straus, 221 pp., $4.50
It was a savage sentence. It was, in fact, the highest which the law allowed. To the trial judge, Mr. Justice Wills, it appeared inadequate. Two years imprisonment with hard labor—'totally inadequate for a case such as this,' he said, addressing Oscar Wilde from the bench at the Old Bailey on May 25th, 1895. Wilde in the dock tried to utter a few words. 'And I? May I say nothing, my Lord?' Mr. Justice Wills waved to the warders, and Wilde, as it is still our custom, was instantly whisked away to the cells below. English judges, then as now, were not required to make any study of penology, many of them had never seen the inside of a prison; to many of us, lacking in experience or imagination, two years may seem survivable; the few who 'were familiar with prison conditions in England at that period realized that the punishment which faced Wilde was one of terrible severity.'
Review, 2507 words
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