The Hôtel d’Alsace, now simply called l’Hôtel, is a luxury hotel in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés area of Paris. Oscar Wilde died in room 16 of the Hôtel d’Alsace.
The trials of Oscar Wilde, which occurred in April and May of 1895, have become legendary as a turning-point in the history of public awareness of homosexuality. By their close, Wilde had gone from being a triumphantly successful playwright to a ruined man, condemned to two years of hard labor for gross indecency. They garnered extensive coverage first in the London press and then in newspapers around the world; the story of the trials continues to be retold in ways that have persistent relevance for contemporary queer culture. Image: Photograph of Oscar Wilde, by Napoleon Sarony. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.
30 November 1900 was the day Oscar Wilde died (in the Latin Quarter, Paris). Image: Photograph of Oscar Wilde. This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.
On September 1905, Charles Ricketts completed Silence, a small bronze statue that has been identified as a memorial to Oscar Wilde. Image: Charles Ricketts, Silence (detail). 1905. Courtesy of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA.
On December 1908, a commission to create a tomb for Wilde was announced; Jacob Epstein was designated sculptor. Image: Detail, The Tomb of Oscar Wilde, c. 1912. Photograph by E.O. Hoppe, courtesy of the University of Reading.
On June 1912, the Tomb of Oscar Wilde, Jacob Epstein’s limestone funerary monument at Pere-Lachaise Cemetery, Paris, was installed. Image: Detail, The Tomb of Oscar Wilde, c. 1912. Photograph by E.O. Hoppe, courtesy of the University of Reading.