Almost 120 years ago, Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for the crime of homosexuality. As little as 50 years ago, members of the LGBTQ+ community would have faced similar persecution, even in Canada.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in Canada in 1969.
These two events- the 50 year anniversary of decriminalization and the “round number” of 120 years since Oscar Wilde’s death- prompted Dr. Goran Stanivukovic, Chair of the Department of English Language and Literature, to approach The Patrick Power Library with an idea: to collect and display in the Patrick Power Library the books that Oscar Wilde requested while in prison. The list of books appears in Wilde's Complete Letters, pp.791-793, and is included in Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde, pp.319-322, by Thomas Wright (2009).
Dr. Stanivukovic launched the display on September 12, 2019, with opening remarks about Wilde, the significance of the collection, and the context within which Wilde was tried and convicted. Anthropology Student Jared Blois performed excerpts from Wilde’s prison writings, reading aloud from De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
Notes by Shawna Murphy, former Outreach and Engagement Librarian