The Guardian: Irony Is Wasted On The Stupid

During the last months of his imprisonment, Oscar Wilde was permitted to exercise his craft as a writer. A folio sheet of blue prison paper was doled out to him and when filled was taken away and replaced with another. In this unique way, he composed a masterly manuscript of more than 50,000 words, containing very few alterations and never thereafter revised.
In 1905, less than half of the work was published under the name of De Profundis...

This is an edited extract

The Guardian, From the archive, 30 October 1949: The destruction of Oscar Wilde