Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854–1900) was an Irish writer, poet, novelist and playwright. Born in Dublin, he studied classical literature at Trinity College and Magdalen College, Oxford, before settling in London. There he became known for his incisive wit and extravagant lifestyle as a dandy. Wilde published poetry, essays, short stories and fairy tales, as well as his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890/91). His major plays included Salomé and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). In 1884 he married Constance Lloyd; they had two sons. In 1895, after an unsuccessful libel action against the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde was convicted of “gross indecency” and sentenced to two years’ hard labour. After his release, he lived in France under the name Sebastian Melmoth and died in Paris in 1900.