Basil Gray

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The recent flurry of fictitious Basils would not be complete without mention of one more: a certain Basil Gray.

And as with the previous Basils, who begin here, the name clearly alludes to the character of Basil Hallward in Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

So where does this Basil fit into the Wilde story?

Curiously, Basil Gray, or to give him his title, Captain Basil Gray, appears in the Wilde story as an amusing aside to an otherwise solemn occasion at Père Lachaise Cemetery.

When Oscar Wilde died in Paris on November 30, 1900, destitute and disgraced, he was buried in the modest Bagneux Cemetery in the suburbs of the city. By 1909 Wilde’s friend and literary executor, Robert Ross, had generated sufficient funds to have Wilde’s remains moved to a resting place more suitable to an artist. The appropriate plot was in Père Lachaise Cemetery where the great, the good, and the notorious, are buried.¹

The exhumation at Bagneux took place at 7:00 AM on July 19, 1909. There was a small gathering but we can be certain only of two attendees: Robert Ross and Wilde’s son, Vyvyan Holland.

Perhaps there were others present. But it was still a time when Wilde’s relatives and supporters sought to retain some anonymity, which is perhaps why one woman was “heavily veiled in black” and remained incognito.

The press was not deterred. One reporter attempted to discover who the gentleman was accompanying Robert Ross. Presumably Ross, who was no stranger to creative thinking, had some mischief at the reporter’s expense and identified his friend as a Captain Basil Gray.²

The Wildean allusions are obvious to us now, but decadent gothic fiction was not necessarily the currency of of provincial reporters in 1909, and the alias passed muster. So pleased was the Captain with his anonymity, he made another appearance at the reinterment the following morning.

The in-joke was not inappropriate for the occasion. Rather it was an exigency that became an opportunity to break the mood. My view is that the exhumation and reinterment must have been a difficult chore for those involved: literally the groundwork for the more ceremonial unveiling of the modernist tomb by Jacob Epstein to be added at a future date.³

And thus the light relief continued. After the reinterment Ross and Vyvyan Holland deservedly repaired to the Café Weber, to partake of a “good luncheon” of Oeufs Weber—one of Oscar’s favorite dishes at one of his favorite restaurants.⁴ And later Vyvyan, as might be expected of a 22 year old with Paris to himself and two sovereigns in his pocket, played hooky from Ross’s care and made merry in Montmartre well into the night.⁵

What Basil Gray got up to is not known.

© John Cooper, 2026.

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With thanks to Merlin Holland for his assistance in the preparation of this article.

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Footnotes:

1. Other celebrities buried at Père Lachaise include Corot, Gustave Doré,
   Isadora Duncan, Max Ernst, Stéphane Grappelli, René Lalique, Georges Méliès, Molière, Yves Montand, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Rossini, and many more. See here for a full list of notable interments. ↩︎
2. Transcribed as “Grey” by the reporter perhaps adding to the misapprehension. ↩︎
3. The Jacob Epstein monument for Oscar Wilde’s tomb was erected at Père Lachaise in 1912, but not officially unveiled until 1914 owing to the indecency controversy. ↩︎
4. Vyvyan Holland, Time Remembered: after Père Lachaise, (London: Victor Gollancz, 1966), 13. ↩︎
5. Ibid., 14-15. ↩︎

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