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Birth
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born at 21 Westland Row, Dublin (now home of the Oscar Wilde Centre, Trinity College), the second of three children born to Anglo-Irish Sir William Wilde and Jane Wilde. -
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Trinity College
At Trinity, Wilde established himself as an outstanding student: he came first in his class in his first year, won a scholarship by competitive examination in his second and, in his finals, won the Berkeley Gold Medal in Greek, the University's highest academic award.[19] He was encouraged to compete for a demyship to Magdalen College, Oxford – which he won easily, having already studied Greek for over nine years. -
Marriage
In London, he was introduced in 1881 to Constance Lloyd. She happened to be visiting Dublin in 1884, when Wilde was lecturing at the Gaiety Theatre. He proposed to her, and they married on 29 May 1884 at the Anglican St James's Church, Paddington, in London. -
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The first version of The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in July 1890. The story begins with a man painting a picture of Gray. When Gray sees his finished portrait, he breaks down. Distraught that his beauty will fade while the portrait stays beautiful, he inadvertently makes a Faustian bargain in which only the painted image grows old while he stays beautiful and young. Reviewers immediately criticised the novel's decadence and homosexual allusions. -
The Importance of Being Earnest
The play, now considered Wilde's masterpiece, was rapidly written in Wilde's artistic maturity in late 1894. It was first performed on 14 February 1895, at St James's Theatre in London. The story is about two men, John and Algernon, who make their two lovers, Cecily and Gwendolen, believe that they're called Ernest. Chaos erupted when the two women discover the lie. -
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Imprisonment
He first entered Newgate Prison in London for processing, then was moved to Pentonville Prison, where the "hard labour" to which he had been sentenced consisted of many hours of walking a treadmill and picking oakum. A few months later he was moved to Wandsworth Prison in London where Wilde's health became delicate. Richard B. Haldane visited Wilde and had him transferred in November to Reading Gaol, 48 km west of London on 23 November 1895. -
Ballad of Reading Gaol
The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand after his release from Reading Gaol. The poem narrates the execution of Wooldridge; it moves from an objective story-telling to symbolic identification with the prisoners as a whole. No attempt is made to assess the justice of the laws which convicted them, but rather the poem highlights the brutalisation of the punishment that all convicts share. It was published in Reynold's Magazine. -
Death
Wilde died of meningitis on 30 November 1900. Wilde was initially buried in the Cimetière de Bagneux outside Paris; in 1909 his remains were disinterred and transferred to Père Lachaise Cemetery, inside the city.
