Oscar Wilde was arrested in London and charged with the crime of gross indecency. The arrest came after Wilde lost a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry, who accused him of having sex with men, which was then a criminal offense in England. Wilde lost the libel case because the judge deemed the evidence supported the Marquess's claim. In fact, WIlde's lover at the time, Lord Alfred Douglas, was the Marquess's son, the translator of his controversial play, Salome. At the time of his arrest, Wilde was carrying a yellow-covered French novel, mistakenly identified in the press as The Yellow Book. This misnomer resulted in the firing of Aubrey Beardsley as the magazine's art editor. Beardsley was associated with Wilde through his decadent illustrations for the play, Salome, but was not otherwise involved with the author.