Although he died relatively young at 46, Oscar Wilde outlived his wife, Constance, by two years. The former Mrs. Wilde, who after her husband's imprisonment took the name Holland, died in Genoa due to complications resulting from an operation. For a time she had been suffering from a number of ailments, which a recent analysis suggests were symptoms of multiple sclerosis. The operation was misguided and had no chance of success.
Constance had lived separately from Wilde for some years prior to her death. She was infuriated when her husband, following his release from prison at the end of his sentence to two years with hard labour, renewed his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas (or "that BEAST" as she referred to him in her letters to friends). However, she maintained an affection for the husband who, during the last days of his imprisonment, conceded that he had "disregarded the tie" of marriage. She travelled across Europe to Reading Gaol to break the news to Wilde of his beloved mother's death. At the end of March 1898 she sent Wilde a letter (now lost) that he thought very nice. Only two weeks later, she was dead.
Wilde claimed to be in "great grief" at the loss, although Robbie Ross, one of his most loyal friends, rushed to Wilde's side and claimed to find that the widower "did not feel it at all". Almost a year later, Wilde met a fellow Englishman named Harold Mellor while holidaying in Nice. Mellor offered to put Wilde up at his villa in southern Switzerland for a month and Wilde decided to travel via Genoa so that he could pay his respects at the grave of his wife. He found the "marble cross with dark ivy-leaves inlaid in a good pattern" very pretty, but that it was tragic to see Constance's name carved on a tomb. At the time only her maiden name (Lloyd) was given. Since then, "Wife of Oscar Wilde" has been added. "I was deeply affected," said Wilde in a letter to Ross, "with a sense, also, of the uselessness of all regrets. Nothing could have been otherwise, and Life is a very terrible thing."
Wilde must certainly have considered regrets useless, as his brief stopover in Genoa turned into three days in the company of an attractive Florentine actor named Didaco.
I visited the Cimitero monumentale di Staglieno in early October. I took some photos as reference for my next Wildean comics project and left behind some flowers.
Constance Wilde's grave at the Cimitero monumentale di Staglieno
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