Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin to a surgeon father and a poet mother. He studied classics at Trinity College Dublin and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he became known for his wit and for the aesthetic idea of art for art's sake. In 1882 he spent a year lecturing across the United States.

His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, appeared in a magazine in 1890 and as a book in 1891. A young man stays beautiful while his portrait ages and shows the marks of his crimes. The book argues that a life spent chasing pleasure corrupts the soul. Reviewers called it immoral, and its editor cut passages before it appeared.

In the early 1890s he wrote a string of hit comedies, ending with The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). That same year he sued the Marquess of Queensberry for libel and lost. He was then convicted of gross indecency for his relationships with men and served two years of hard labor. He left prison bankrupt and in poor health and died in Paris in 1900, aged 46.