Oscar Wilde *

a.k.a. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills

Author Code: IOWX

Wilde was educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford. He was an early enthusiast of the Aesthetic movement and became a popular figure in London literary circles. He published Poems (1881) at his own expense, and followed this with a series of shorter works of fiction and his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). He is best remembered for his plays and his wit. The major plays were Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), and his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). He was sentenced to two years hard labour in 1895 for his homosexual practices and this had an enormous effect on him, both mentally and physically. After his release he settled in Paris, where he died in 1900. While in prison, Wilde wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol (published in 1898) and De Profundis (published in 1905).