Oscar's income dried up at the source.

His books were withdrawn from sale; no one went to see his plays; every shop keeper to whom he owed a penny took immediate action against him.

Judgments were obtained and an execution put into his house in Tite Street.
Within a month, at the very moment when he most needed money to fee counsel and procure evidence, he was beggared and sold up, and because of his confinement in prison the sale was conducted under such conditions that, whereas in ordinary times his effects would have covered the claims against him three times over, all his belongings went for nothing, and the man who was making L4,000 or L5,000 a year by his plays was adjudicated a bankrupt for a little over L1,000.

L600 of this sum were for Lord Queensberry's costs which the Queensberry family--Lord Douglas of Hawick, Lord Alfred Douglas and their mother--had promised in writing to pay, but when the time came, absolutely refused to pay.

Most unfortunately many of Oscar's MSS.
were stolen or lost in the disorder of the sheriff's legal proceedings.