Wilde died in Paris in November 1900, bankrupt and effectively stateless — his British citizenship had never protected him, and after his 1895 conviction under the Criminal Law Amendment Act he was, in practical terms, a man the Empire preferred to forget. That a Cook Islands-adjacent Pacific territory is now issuing gold on his image is a particular kind of historical irony he would likely have appreciated.
Wilde died in Paris in November 1900, bankrupt and effectively stateless — his British citizenship had never protected him, and after his 1895 conviction under the Criminal Law Amendment Act he was, in practical terms, a man the Empire preferred to forget. That a Cook Islands-adjacent Pacific territory is now issuing gold on his image is a particular kind of historical irony he would likely have appreciated.