More than a century after Oscar Wilde was barred from one of Britain’s most storied institutions, the celebrated playwright’s name will once again grace the British Library’s register of readers.

On Thursday evening, Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland, will accept a newly issued library pass in his grandfather’s honor — a symbolic act of restitution 130 years after the original was revoked.

In 1895, Wilde — one of the brightest literary lights of his age — was stripped of his British Museum Reading Room privileges after being sentenced to prison for “gross indecency,” a charge stemming from his homosexuality. At the time, same-sex relationships were a criminal offence, and the scandal brought Wilde’s dazzling career to a devastating end.

The British Library, which inherited the collections and traditions of the old British Museum Reading Room, announced in June that it would reinstate Wilde’s reader pass. The timing coincided with Pride Month, a deliberate gesture to honor the writer’s enduring influence and to acknowledge the injustices he suffered.

On Thursday, Holland — Wilde’s only grandson — will collect the new pass, complete with Wilde’s name and photograph, at a special event celebrating both the reissue and Holland’s forthcoming book, After Oscar: The Legacy of a Scandal. The biography traces how Wilde’s reputation, once shattered by his conviction, has been slowly and rightfully restored in the years since.

For the British Library, the moment serves as more than an archival correction — it’s a tribute to one of literature’s greatest voices, silenced by prejudice but never forgotten.