Historical pederast's British Library Card posthumously reinstated

[Jim Burton]

https://www.removepaywall.com/search?ur ... pension%2F

The British Library has reinstated the suspended library card of revered Irish author Oscar Wilde, who died in 1900.

Wilde’s access to the British Museum Reading Room was revoked in 1895 after the gay writer was convicted of “gross indecency” and sentenced to two years in prison. Sexual relationships between men were illegal in the U.K. until 1967.

Wilde’s newly issued card was expected to be collected Thursday — on what would have been his 171st birthday — by his grandson, author Merlin Holland, according to the BBC.

Holland said his grandfather had been in prison for three months when his library privileges were revoked and wouldn’t have been aware of the insult, which is probably just as well.