Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford. A brilliant student, his poem Ravenna won the 1878 Newdigate Prize. Soon after leaving university his first volume of poetry, Patience, was published. In 1880 Wilde went on a lecture tour of the USA. When immigration officials asked him if he had anything to declare he replied, "Only my genius".

Wilde married Constance Lloyd in 1884 and the couple had two sons. When the boys were children Wilde wrote fairy stories for them that were later published as The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888). This was followed two years later by the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and a book on the role of the artist, The Soul of Man under Socialism (1891).

However, it was a playwright that Wilde had his greatest success. Comedies such as Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) made him one of Britain's most famous writers.

By 1895 Wilde had left his wife and began having an homosexual affair with Alfred Douglas. When the Marquis of Queensberry heard about his son's relationship with Wilde, he publicly accused the writer of being a "ponce and sodomite". Wilde sued for libel but he lost his case and was then himself prosecuted and imprisoned for homosexuality under the terms of the Criminal Law Amendment Act.

After being released from Reading Prison in 1897 Wilde moved to France. The following year he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a poem inspired by his prison experience. Wilde's time in prison badly damaged his health and he died in 1900.

	Enter your search terms Submit search form
	Web www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk