Oscar Wilde was born Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde in Dublin on 16 October 1854 to Sir William Wilde and his wife Jane. Oscar's mother, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde (1820-1896), was a successful poet and journalist.  

From an early age, Wilde demonstrated his propensity for the artistic and literary world, particularly extolling the virtues of the classics of Greece and Rome. After excelling in his early education, young Oscar went on to achieve a scholarship allowing him to attend Trinity College in Dublin and then at Magdalen College, Oxford where he would continue to excel in his academic studies and begin to dabble in the field of creative writing. His poetry became an instant hit and on the year of his graduation he won the prestigious Newdigate Prize for the best English verse composition with his poem, “Ravenna”. Whilst he was at Oxford, he fell under the influence of art critic John Ruskin and Walter Pater, famous essayist.

The artistic movement which took centre stage and in which Oscar Wilde immersed himself, was called aestheticism. Perhaps most succinctly, the movement was characterised by the phrase: art for art’s sake. The focus of their work whether it was literary, art, or design, was primarily on the aesthetics. The emphasis on the beauty of the composition, rather than the contextual background of social, economic or political ramifications characterised the work of this era.

Beauty in all its forms was to be explored and throughout his career, Wilde became a representative of this ideal.

Wilde moved to London and released his first publication entitled, “Poems”, an assortment of poetry which received a mixed reaction. In his next move, he would travel to New York in America to go on a lecture tour mixing with a variety of characters, including the famous American poet, Walt Whitman whom Wilde greatly admired. After the success of his American lecture tour Wilde embarked on a tour of the British Isles which lasted until 1884. In this time, his poetry and his academic lectures helped to firmly establish him in literary circles and he became a leading light of the aesthetic movement.

Whilst his career grew from strength to strength, his personal life would be dogged by rumours of infidelity and scandal. In 1884, he married a wealthy Englishwoman by the name of Constance Lloyd and settled down, having two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. In 1888 Wilde published a very different kind of literature, this time for children called, “The Happy Prince and Other Tales”. One of his most famous works, which turned out to be his only novel, was published soon after. A story of a man who lives a debauched life with pleasure as his main goal, the young Dorian Gray was the epitome of aestheticism and was said to have been a reflection of Wilde himself. The hedonism characterised by the novel shocked Victorian readers and greatly offended the sensibilities of the conventional classes who were not ready for the shocking decadence described.

Despite this, by the 1890’s, Wilde was one of the most successful and well-known literary figures. Celebrated as a playwright, the plays which gained most traction were his comedies such as “An Ideal Husband” and “Lady Windermere’s Fan”. In 1895 his play “The Importance of Being Earnest” proved highly popular and was an instant hit, drawing large crowds in London’s West End. Sadly, this success proved short-lived and marked the zenith of his career, with his turbulent personal life destined to take centre stage. 

Whilst Wilde explored themes of luxury, decadence and debauchery in his literature, much of it served as a mirror to his own life. After seven years of being married to his wife, Wilde embarked on an affair with man nicknamed “Bosie”, also known as Lord Alfred Douglas, a young aristocrat and poet. At the time, homosexuality was a crime and their love affair was kept secret, however Douglas’ father, after discovering the relationship, was determined to make a spectacle of Wilde and ruin his career. 

The Marquess of Queensberry, Douglas’ father, arranged to disrupt Wilde’s play at the West End and present him with a bouquet of rotting vegetables; however, Wilde was able to intervene and prevent him from entering. Inevitably, the quarrel escalated and soon entered the public domain when Queensberry left a card at the Albemarle Club which exposed and accused Wilde of homosexuality.

This caused outrage and immediately close friends of Wilde urged him to flee to France where they had already decriminalised homosexuality in 1791. Unfortunately, Wilde chose to ignore this advice and instead took the argument to the courts by suing the Marquess for defamation. 

The accusations of libel levelled at the Marquess did not hold and the attention of the court immediately turned to Wilde’s sexuality, with a number of witnesses called upon to testify to the sight of young men entering Wilde’s bedroom. Wilde was convicted of gross indecency and a sentence of two years of hard labour was given. In May 1895 he began his prison sentence and was put to work. Inevitably, his health deteriorated considerably and in 1897, upon his release, he was shadow of his former self.

Upon his release in 1897, he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol, revealing his concern for inhumane prison conditions. He spent the rest of his life wandering Europe, staying with friends and living in cheap hotels. He died of cerebral meningitis on November 30, 1900, penniless, in a cheap Paris hotel.