13 Rue des Beaux Arts, 75006 Paris, France
“Oscar Wilde, poet and playwright… Died in this building on November 30, 1900,” reads the memorial plaque on the wall of the hotel intriguingly named simply "Hotel." The Irish writer Oscar Wilde, who wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest, was known for his razor-sharp wit, conversational skill, and flamboyant style. Although he was a beloved guest at London parties and salons in the late 1800s, many people turned away from him when his homosexuality became public knowledge, and he was sent to prison.
Wilde’s reputation in London was ruined, so as soon as he was released from prison, English society declared a boycott against Oscar Wilde, and the last three years of the writer’s life were spent in “heartbreaking, hopeless poverty” in Paris. He rented a furnished apartment in the Hôtel d’Alsace (now the five-star Hôtel l’Hôtel), where he stayed until his death in 1900, “dying beyond his means.” The hotel was shabby and cheap. He wrote to his publisher that the state of the hotel “really breaks the heart: it is so shabby, so utterly depressing, so hopeless. I beg you, do everything you can.” One of the last things Wilde wrote was: “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has to go.” The writer died in his hotel room, and an unpaid bill for 2,643 francs still hangs on the wall of his room.
However, there is no trace left of the heartbreaking poverty of the room where the writer died in 1900.
The cozy boutique hotel with a huge library on the Left Bank now resembles the writer’s London home more than anything else.
Sources:
https://theearfultower.com/2022/06/28/a-look-inside-oscar-wildes-hotel-room-in-paris/
