Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wills Wilde (1854-1900), English author. Born October 16, 1854 in Dublin, Ireland to Sir William and Lady Jane Wilde. In 1884 he married Constance Lloyd and fathered 2 sons Cyril (1885) and Vyvyan (1886). He died November 30, 1900 and was buried at Père Lachaise cemetery, Paris .

He attended Oxford and was often found in all the right drawing rooms in London society.

Sexual Orientation

Wilde has various been considered bisexual or homosexual, depending on how the terms are defined. His inclination towards relations with other men was relatively well known. When Wilde became intimate with Lord Alfred Douglas, the Marquess of Queensbury , who was Lord Alfred's father, publicly insulted Wilde with a mispelled note left at Wilde's club. The note read "Mr. Wilde posing as a Somdomite."

Wilde charged Queensbury with libel. The confrontation escalated and some believe Lord Alfred egged Wilde on, to fight his father. Wilde was eventually formally accused of being a homosexual and went to trial for that crime.

He was sentenced to two years of hard labor in 1895. There he wrote the famous poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol. ("For he who lives more lives than one, more deaths than one must die") Prison was unkind to Wilde's health and when he was released he spent his last years penniless in self-inflicted exile from society and artistic circles.

He died alone, in a Paris hotel, under an assumed name, Lord Alfred having forsaken him.

Writings

He wrote many famous works, among them:

The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888)
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
A Woman of No Importance (1893)
The Importance of Being Earnest
An Ideal Husband(1894)

External Link

The Oscar Wilde Collection

Wilde was highly quotable and had a way with words. Well known phrases like "We are all standing on the ground, but some of us are looking at the stars" have been attributed to Oscar Wilde.

One of the best bios about Oscar Wilde was written by his friend Frank Harris.