Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol: A Mystery (39 page)

Oscar Wilde died in a small, first-floor room at L’Hôtel d’Alsace, 13 rue des Beaux-Arts, in Paris, at approximately 1.45 p.m. on 30 November 1900. Exactly one hundred years later, at the same time, on the same date, in the same room, Gyles and Michèle Brandreth were among a small group who gathered to mark the centenary of his passing and to honour a most remarkable man, whose greatest play, according to Frank Harris, was his own life: ‘a five-act tragedy with Greek implications, and he was its most ardent spectator’. In 2010, Gyles Brandreth unveiled the plaque commemorating the first meeting of Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle at the Langham Hotel, London.

For further historical information and for details of the other titles in the series, for reviews, interviews and material of particular interest to reading groups, etc., see:

www.oscarwildemurdermysteries.com