Meet the Author
Oscar Wilde
Irish · 1854–1900 · Playwright, novelist, and wit
Portrait: Napoleon Sarony / Adam Cuerden, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Victorian era’s most quotable writer, whose comedies and single novel mocked the society that later destroyed him.
2 StoryBites Editions2 Big Books2 Full texts
Why read Oscar Wilde?
Wilde’s sentences sparkle: paradoxes, jokes, and epigrams that turn conventional wisdom upside down. Behind the wit is a serious attack on hypocrisy and a belief in beauty for its own sake. Read him for comedy that still works on stage and for a novel about the price of a double life.
A life in six dates
- 1854Born in Dublin
- 1874Goes to Magdalen College, Oxford
- 1890The Picture of Dorian Gray appears in a magazine
- 1895The Importance of Being Earnest opens in London
- 1895Convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years’ hard labor
- 1900Dies in Paris
Themes across the collection
The StoryBites Editions
Context that actually matters
AestheticismWilde championed the idea that art should be valued for its beauty rather than its moral lesson.
Victorian respectabilityHis comedies mock the manners and double standards of upper-class society.
His trialsHis prosecution for homosexuality ended his career and made him a symbol of Victorian persecution.
Reading the plays and snagging on the language? A Glossary of Common Shakespearean Words →
Influence
Echoes of Oscar Wilde run through Noël Coward, Tom Stoppard, among many others.