Authors

Irish · 1854–1900

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was an Irish playwright, poet, and novelist whose The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) made him the most brilliant literary personality of the 1890s. He was convicted of 'gross indecency' in 1895 — for his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas — and served two years in Reading Gaol. The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898) and De Profundis (written in prison) are the literary products of his ruin. He died in Paris at forty-six, converting to Catholicism on his deathbed.