Oscar Wilde

Born in Dublin in 1854, Oscar Wilde studied at Trinity College Dublin and later at Oxford, where he developed the style and ideas that made him a leading voice of the Aesthetic movement. He first built his reputation through poems, lectures, essays, and stories before becoming a major literary celebrity in London.

Wilde is best remembered for works such as The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband, and Lady Windermere’s Fan. His writing blends polished comedy with satire, memorable one-liners, and a keen eye for vanity, fashion, morality, and social performance.

His career collapsed after the trials of 1895, which led to imprisonment and, later, exile in France. He died in Paris in 1900, but his plays, fiction, and criticism have endured, and he remains one of the most widely read and quoted authors of the nineteenth century.