Topic

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde Events

1854 Oct 16 Oscar Wilde Is Born
Oscar Wilde was born at 21 Westland Row, Dublin (now home of the Oscar Wilde Centre, Trinity College, Dublin) the second of three children born to Sir William Wilde and Jane Francesca Wil...
1864
to 1871
Oscar Wilde Attends the Portora Royal School for Boys
We know something of Oscar Wilde's time at Portora from surviving records and from contemporaries. When Ocsar enrolled at Portora in February 1864, he signed the Roll Book, "Oscar Fingal ...
1871
to 1874
Oscar Wilde Attends Trinity College in Dublin
Wilde won a spot at Trinity College Dublin in 1871, departing Portora Royal School with his name engraved in guilt letters on the honors board, and having easily won an important prize in...
1874
to 1878
Oscar Wilde Attends Magdalen College in Oxford
While at Magdalen College, Wilde became particularly well known for his role in the aesthetic and decadent movements. He wore his hair long, openly scorned "manly" sports though he occasi...
1878 Oscar Wilde Is Awarded the Newdigate Prize
Oscar Wilde was awarded the Newdigate Prize for Poetry for Ravenna in his last year at Oxford. Wilde's winning the Newdigate Prize and his earning a double first in "Greats" helped to spr...
1882 Jan 3 Oscar Wilde Begins Lecture Tour of the United States and Canada
"I have nothing to declare except my genius." —Oscar Wilde, upon arriving in the United States of America
1884 May 29 Oscar Wilde Marries Constance Lloyd
On May 29, 1884, Oscar married Constance Lloyd. Constance was four years younger than Oscar and the daughter of a prominent barrister who died when she was 16. She was well-read, spoke se...
1887 Oscar Wilde is Appointed Editor of 'The Lady's World'
His flair, having previously only been put into socialising, suited journalism and did not go unnoticed. With his youth nearly over, and a family to support, in mid-1887 Wilde became the ...
1890 Jun 20 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' Is Published
In 1890, Oscar Wilde published the first version of The Picture of Dorian Gray in Lippincott's Magazine. After vociferous public responses to the novel's "one element... which will taint ...
1891 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime' is Published
In this story, the main character is introduced by Lady Windermere to Mr Septimus R. Podgers , a chiromantist, who reads his palm and tells him that it is in his future that he will be a ...
1891 Oscar Wilde Meets Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas
In the summer of 1891, Oscar met Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas, the third son of the Marquis of Queensberry. Bosie was well acquainted with Oscar's novel “Dorian Gray” and was an undergradu...
1891 Jan 26 'The Duchess of Padua' Opens in New York
Wilde finishes his second play, the five-act poetic drama The Duchess of Padua, and sends it off to an American manager who had contracted for it. But it is rejected both by the manager a...
1892 'A House of Pomegranates' Is Published
A House of Pomegranates is a collection of fairy tales, written by Oscar Wilde, that was published as a second collection for The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1892). Wilde once said that...
1892 Feb 22 'Lady Windermere's Fan' Is Produced in London
Lady Windermere's Fan: A Play About a Good Woman is a four act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first produced 22 February 1892 at the St James Theatre in London. The play was first published in 18...
1893 Apr 19 'A Woman of No Importance' Premieres in London
This play is considered to be Wilde's least successful drama, largely because it is not successfully epigrammatic in its structure and themes. Although Wilde sets his play in an interesti...
1895 Jan 3 'An Ideal Husband' Opens at the Haymarket Theatre in London
One of the issues being worked out in the Victorian theater was the so-called woman question. Plays like Pinero's The Second Mrs.Tanqueray illustrate the impossibility of accepting a woma...
1895 Feb 14 'The Importance of Being Ernest' Premieres in London
"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his." —Oscar Wilde
1895 Apr 3 Oscar Wilde Brings Libel Charges Against the Marquess of Queensberry
At the Albemarle Club where Wilde dined, Queensberry left his calling card complete with misspelling of the libelous word: "To Oscar Wilde, posing as a somdomite." Wilde felt he was left ...
1895 Apr 26 Oscar Wilde is Prosecuted on Charges of 'Gross Indecency'
"The love that dare not speak its name" in this century is such a great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis o..." —Oscar Wilde
1895 May 25 Oscar Wilde is Sentenced to Two Years Hard Labor
"It is no use for me to address you. People who can do these things must be dead to all sense of shame, and one cannot hope to produce any effect upon them. It is the worst case I have e..." —Justice Alfred Wills delivering Oscar Wilde's sentence
1896 'Salome' Premieres in Paris
Rehearsals for the play's debut on the London stage began in 1892, but were halted when the Lord Chamberlain's licensor of plays banned Salomé on the basis that it was illegal to depict B...
1897 May 19 Oscar Wilde is Released From Prison
Upon his release, Oscar wrote “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” a response to the agony he experienced in prison. It was published shortly before Constance's death in 1898. He and Bosie reuni...
1898 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' is Published
In 1895, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to 2 years of hard labor for acts of ‘gross indecency’. During his time at Reading Gaol, he witnessed a rare hanging, and in the three years between his...
1900 Nov 30 Oscar Wilde Dies
"Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to for..." —Oscar Wilde
1905 'De Profundis' Is Published
"...I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world... And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the..." —Oscar Wilde