Oscar Wilde No Longer Accepting Kisses

Reuters
Adam Martin 684 Views Nov 30, 2011

The pilgrimage has been around as long as teenagers have smoked clove cigarettes before majoring in literature in college, but no more will they be able to plant a heavily lipsticked kiss on Oscar Wilde's grave during a visit to Paris. The refurbished grave, unveiled on Wednesday, includes a barrier to prevent any more such smooches, which The Guardian reports have been beginning to eat away at the stone. According to the BBC, some have already started to leave their lip-shaped marks on a tree next to the grave, and plenty of lipstick still gets spread on the tomb of Jim Morrison, who is buried in the same cemetery. But that seems a poor substitute for the angel-adorned tomb itself, which has attracted the literary lipstick set since about 1985, according to The Guardian.

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