Countdown to
Oscar Wilde 2014,
his 160-year birthday anniversary
>>
... and much less to the
Jenny Lind Gala
Concert 2013
Oscar Wilde in summary
Known for the barbed wit imbedded in his works, Oscar Wilde became one of the most
successful playwrights of late Victorian London and one of
the greatest celebrities of his day. The period in
which he gained fame, however, came late and was relative
short.
Oscar Wilde's one and only novel, The Picture
of Dorian Gray was published in 1890. His acclaimed
plays were written in 1891-1894:
- Salomé: first written in
French, published in 1893.
- Lady Windermere's Fan: comedy dealing
with a blackmailing divorcée driven to self-sacrifice by
maternal love.
- A Woman of No Importance: comedy about an illegitimate son torn between his father and
mother.
- An Ideal Husband: comedy
dealing with
blackmail, political corruption and public and private
honour.
- The Importance of Being Earnest:
comedy about two fashionable young gentlemen and their
eventually successful courtships.
Earlier, he published a collection of
poems in Boston during his full-year tour of America in
1882, and in 1888 the Hans Christian Andersen-like stories The
Happy Prince and Other Tales. Among other
essays in the period 1889-1892, three stand out:
As the result of an infamous trial in 1895 convicting him of gross
indecency, Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for
two years of hard labour. Scholars have later studied his own letters, the long epistle
De Profundis, the
mysterious publication
Oscar Wilde From Purgatory: Psychic Messages, and
some other works. |
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
