Oscar Wilde's tomb in an unguarded moment

The BBC reports that Oscar Wilde‘s newly restored tomb in Paris, unveiled yesterday on the 111th anniversary of Wilde’s death, has been given a glass barrier to prevent the lipsticked kisses that had been “gradually destroying it.” The actor Rupert Everett, who has performed in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and is working on a screenplay on Wilde, told the BBC that “unfortunately” a glass wall had to be built to protect it from “endless women kissing it.” (And, we would imagine, some men.)

Everett acknowledged that Wilde would have been “certainly amused” by the many kisses, but pointed out that Wilde also “was very well aware of the danger of a kiss” and “was the person who said ‘save me from my disciples.'”