(Fiachra Gibbon’s article appeared on Yahoo, 9/28; via the Drudge Report.)
Paris (AFP) – It has taken more than a century, but France is finally paying fulsome tribute to Oscar Wilde, the writer who died penniless in a fleapit Paris hotel saying, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go."
The first major exhibition in the French capital on the Irish wit and playwright opens on Wednesday.
Its "hugely touching" final rooms chart his tragic end in the city, exiled and disgraced aged only 46.
Wilde fled to Paris in 1897 after being hounded out of England having served two years in jail with hard labour for his doomed love for Lord Alfred Douglas.
His grandson Merlin Holland, who has helped put the show together, said it is "still very hard to read" some of his letters written on blue prison paper "where Oscar is on his knees" begging for clemency.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/paris-finally-bows-importance-oscar-wilde-090507496.html