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he had a really really really extensive photoshoot by Napoleon Sarony in america very soon after he arrived which is where most of his famous photos come from

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this was used in a face cream ad in 1885 for unknown reasons

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Sadly his hair never went long again after this..

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No idea why they took a photo of him on his deathbed.

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Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on October 16, 1854 to Sir William Wilde and Lady Jane Wilde - both very influential figures at the time in Ireland. Wilde grew up in Dublin, where he was homeschooled until the age of 9 by his French maid and German governess, who both taught him their respective languages, making him fluent in both.

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At age 9, he began attending Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Where he outperformed his brother academically, though they both did well. He graduated in 1871 when he began attending Trinity College.

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Wilde got a scholarship to Trinity College, Dublin in Classics, where he attended from 1871-1874. He was an outstanding student, coming first in his first year, won a scholarship the next, and a few years later, won the Berkeley Gold Medal in Greek.

At Trinity, he met Sir J.P Mahaffy - his professor, who he later said “taught me to love Greek things” and so influenced him greatly. Mahaffy once boasted that he had “created Wilde”, though later he described him as “the only blot on my tutorship” after Wilde’s imprisonment.

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he won a demyship to Oxford in 1874, and moved in a week before he turned 20. At Oxford, he gained his reputation as an Aesthete, or part of the Aestheticism movement. Aestheticism is a philosophy that was moderately popular around this period in time, somewhat related to French Decadence that preached “Art for Art’s sake” and valued beauty above near everything else. He amassed a large collection of china, which he once said he found it “harder and harder every day to live up to”, painted dragons on his walls, decorated his room with sunflowers, lilies, and peacock feathers, and dressed relatively flamboyantly. Though he made a huge effort to make it seem like he didnt care about work or grades, he graduated with a double first in his B.A of Classical Moderations and Classics. He wrote to his friend William Ward, “The dons are astonished beyond words - the bad boy doing so well in the end!”

in 1878, he won the Newdigate prize for his poem “Ravenna”, his first big break into published works.

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His friends and himself had nicknames, from Hosky to Kitten to Bouncer, yeah I don’t know either

They would go on trips together, and some of their letters were..interesting.

“Dearest Kitten, have you fallen down a well, or misplaced yourself such as that you cannot write to me?”

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After the success with Ravenna in 1878, he began to become invested with the literary and arts scene in london, as well as continuing to be the mascot of Aestheticism. He also continued to make poems and became friends with people like Lillie Langtry or Mrs. Bernard Beere.

In 1880 he completed his first play- Vera, or the Nihilists. It was a melodrama and was privately printed and sent to various actress friends of his in hopes to interest them in playing the main character. It was eventually settled to be Mrs. Bernard Beere.

In 1881, Wilde published a book of poems. It was titled, rather creatively, Poems. It received much press, though mostly negative. One quote from the caption of a caricature was “ Aesthete of Aesthetes!/ What’s in a name / The poet is Wilde / but his poetry’s tame.” At the same time, however, many still considered his poems ‘controversial’

Despite his controversy and criticism, He maintained his reputation and even had a satire play featuring an impersonation of him…

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Patience (1881) was a satirical play about the Aestheticism movement, wherein it’s not really known if the main character of the play is necessarily a purposeful or direct parody of Oscar Wilde in particular, but it definitely seemed so. . He didn’t mind at all however, and even began to embody the character from the play in his manner of dress; growing his hair even longer, wearing his stockings over his pants, ribbons on his shoes, etc. meanwhile, the play became popular. Very popular. So popular, in fact, that it was set to tour America within the next few years. The issue was, America hadn’t been affected very much by the Aestheticism movement. In fact, they didn’t know what it was. To fix this and allow the play to tour America, they invited Wilde to tour the country with speeches in order to introduce Americans to the concept and people they were making fun of.

He obliged enthusiastically, and arrived in America on January 3, 1882. He said at customs “I have nothing to declare except my genius.” Throughout the year he traveled around the country giving speeches preaching his ideals and philosophies to people from California to New York to Texas and even Canada at some point. There he learned about different cultural, political, and religious states across the nation at the time. He wrote to Mrs. Bernard Beere that the Mormons in California sat in huge family groups and were “ very, very ugly.”

He met Walt Whitman, a then 64 year old poet whom he admired greatly and may have slept with..? He was quoted as saying that he still had “the kiss of Walt Whitman on [his] lips.”

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In 1883 he moved to Paris briefly where he met lifelong friend Robert Sherard, then back to london in 1884 when he got married. He had been introduced to Constance Lloyd in 1881 by her father, but his trip to America had made it so they didn’t really meet again until 1883. Their marriage began very happily, and they had two children soon after; Vyvyan Wilde, b.1885 and Cyril Wilde, b.1886. He wrote many short stories for his children which included The Selfish Giant, The Star Child, and many more.

It’s not clear if Wilde was very involved in his homosexuality before he met Robbie Ross, but he seemed to have begun most of his gay affairs from that point forward. Robbie Ross met Wilde in 1886, two years before he even went to college. He was also probably the closest thing you could be to openly gay at the time. He became a lifelong close friend and their relationship lasted until around 1889.

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He was also interested in the art of the pre-Raphaelites who were a secret society of artists from the mid 19th century, who opposed the growing movement of genre painting of everyday scenes, and Raphael the renaissance painter, hence the name. The man who inspired their theories was also a benchmark in the theories of Aestheticism.

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The poet John Gray was a part of Oscar’s social circle, which also included illustrator/author Aubrey Beardsley. He was Oscar’s lover from around 1889 to 1890 (so not very long) and was rumored to be the inspiration behind Dorian Gray.

When commissioned by Lippincott’s monthly magazine, among other authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, he was initially going to do a short story called The Fisherman And His Soul (which he did end up publishing separately) but halfway through he decided to write the novel he’d had the idea for since 1887 when he had Frances Richards, the Canadian painter, paint his portrait. He communicated some similar themes in his dialogue essay “The Portrait of Mr. W.H” including themes of morality, homosexuality, and youth. The Picture of Dorian Gray took longer than the publisher had expected, since it was originally commissioned as a short story and had far exceeded its word limit, eventually being finished and sent in 7 months after the deadline in July 1890.

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In 1878 he went on a trip with JP Mahaffy, his Trinity professor, to Greece in the middle of the academic year which earned him what was essentially a suspension from Oxford

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When The Picture of Dorian Gray was published officially in 1891, it caught the attention of Lionel Johnson and, more importantly, Lord Alfred Douglas, or Bosie, as he was called by his friends and family. Douglas had read Dorian Gray and loved it, and when invited by Lionel Johnson to go to dinner with Wilde, he enthusiastically obliged. despite having not met before, they very soon began a relationship.

This was a decidedly negative influence on Wilde, however. Douglas was a spoilt man who spent all his money on gambling and rent boys. (Rent boys were basically code for male prostitutes) their relationship influenced oscar to follow in his footsteps.

And so began a spiral and a so-called "double life" he led; one as the prolific writer and family man, and one as the decadent gay man who spent most of his money buying gifts for bosie and the various rent boys he paid for.

Bosie was also really mean to him.. it was clear their relationship was toxic. There was one time, allegedly, where Oscar had helped him to recover from a sickness and subsequently caught it from him. as he lay sick in bed, he was sent Bosie's hotel bill, not visited even once.

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Lowkey the real life Dorian Gray

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Their relationship continued, and Oscar alluded to this sort of "duality" or "double life" he was living in many of his plays. An example is in The Importance of Being Earnest with the themes of name swapping, identity, etc. Most prominently in my opinion, the entire premise of "Earnest" having another identity for when he goes to the country, what he calls "Bunburying".

Anyways, Oscar and Bosie's "friendship" continued until a fateful day in 1895.

Bosie's father was the Marquess of Queensbury, otherwise known as the inventor of modern boxing rules apparently. he sent a card to Oscar Wilde's club which said in nearly illegible handwriting something along the lines of, "To Oscar Wilde, posing as sodomite." (He actually misspelled sodomite it said somdomite on the original card).

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After receiving this card, he didn't quite know what to do. the first thing Bosie did was to beg him to sue his father for libel (defamation). Oscar did as he said.

To sue for libel, one had to assure their lawyer that what they were suing for was completely untrue. Wilde assured his lawyer it was untrue. it was, in fact, true. Queensberry's lawyers had gathered rent boys from all over the underbelly of London who gave some of their testimonies, before the court ruled it suspicious enough that the next day Oscar Wilde's trial would commence.

The trial lasted 2 days where he defended himself eloquently and wittily, and it seemed as if he would be left off the hook. Until he said that a particular boy was "far too ugly" for him to kiss, which lead the court to believe that he was in fact guilty. He was sentenced to two years hard labor by a judge who was quoted saying “It is the worst case I have ever tried. I shall pass the severest sentence that the law allows. In my judgment it is totally inadequate for such a case as this. The sentence of the Court is that you be imprisoned and kept to hard labor for two years.”

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before he was officially sentenced, he was begged by his friends like Robbie Ross, Oscar Browning, and Robert Sherard to simply escape to france and never come back again, but his final conversation with his mother changed his mind and he decided to stay. he left one final letter to Bosie before he had to go to prison, a letter that was romantic and heartfelt and it was hard to believe their relationship was anything less than perfectly loving. sad, really.

Victorian prisons are infamous for their horrible conditions, and Oscar Wilde's experience was no different. he was made to sleep on wood planks with inadequate meals and was made to walk a treadmill for six hours a day. he had to declare bankruptcy while in prison, and never saw his wife or children again afterwards.

Bosie was nowhere to be found during this time.

In early 1897, just around 4 months before his release, he wrote a letter i believe to be his best work; De Profundis.

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De Profundis is a roughly 50,000 word letter written to Bosie. It was written 4 pages at a time, since that was all he was allowed at once so some things are repeated.. it details his experiences, mostly negative, with Bosie, how he never seemed to really care, how he took advantage of Oscar’s generosity etc. it also describes his philosophical and literary revelations in prison which included his conversion to agnosticism, individual connection to religion, and characterization of Christ as an artist. It was initially given to Robbie Ross when he was released from prison to be copied and sent to Bosie. And this he did, however when Bosie received the letter he immediately burned it, never reading it until 1913 when the full text was read in court during the Ransome Libel trial, where Douglas and Ross were suing Arthur Ransom for a falsification of Wilde’s life in a ‘biography’ he had published. Ross had created a third copy for himself, which had survived after the burned copy of Bosie’s and the kept copy of Wilde’s.

Ross published an extremely abridged version of the letter in 1905, titling it De Profundis and cutting out any reference to Bosie or his trial. In 1908 or so a slightly expanded version was published across some compilation works, though the full version wasn’t available to the public until 1960 at Ross’ request when he donated it to the British Museum, and it was eventually donated to the British Public Library.

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He was eventually released from prison in May 1897 and was described by his friends as malnourished and very thin. Seemingly almost dazed by the effects of the torturous conditions of prison he was made and urged to move to France, as he was too infamous to be allowed in anywhere. In fact, his wife and children were affected as well, having been kicked out of multiple hotels after Oscar declared bankruptcy simply for carrying his name. They moved to Switzerland and changed their surname to Holland to avoid any association. She died of ear infection in April 1898.

His last written work was The Ballad of Reading Gaol (pronounced redding jail), a poem of an ex soldier who was executed during his time in prison. It heavily critiques the system and its cruelty. He never published anything again.

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In his depression following his release, he took to drinking again and gained back all the weight he lost in prison, and took on the fake name of Sebastian Melmoth, referencing the book Melmoth the Wanderer. He had barely any money and was scraping by living in various hotels. Constance offered to send him £3 a week if he didn’t continue in his ways (homosexuality, Bosie)

And after all that, he still got back with Bosie in Rome, despite his wife’s conditions, despite De Profundis, despite everything. They sent letters to each other all the way until around a week or so before Oscar’s death. He was still in contact with many of his friends, though his mother had died while he was in prison, including Robbie Ross, who stayed with him regardless and even by his deathbed.

During mass in prison, he collapsed due to malnutrition which made him sustain an ear and brain injury. This eventually spiraled into meningitis over the next 3 years of ignoring it, and it was his cause of death on November 30, 1900 at the age of 46. His last words were reportedly “This wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go.”

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His mother, Lady Jane Wilde (neé Elgee) was a prolific and influential revolutionary poet and writer in support of Irish nationalism under the pseudonym Speranza. She died of Bronchitis in 1896, unable to see her son, who was in prison.

His Father, Sir William Wilde, was a doctor, or rather a oto-ophthalmologic surgeon. He opened and ran his own hospital in Dublin, St Mark's Ophthalmic Hospital for Diseases of the Eye and Ear. He eventually made his way out of society’s eye after a sexual assault case was put against him and he retired to the west of Ireland and died while Oscar was in College.

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Constance, Wilde, and Cyril (?) (early 1890s)

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Constance, Wilde, and Cyril (?) (early 1890s)

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Teleny was, for lack of a better word, the first gay pornographic novel. It is usually attributed to Wilde, but it was in fact a collaboration between many different authors, reportedly including Robbie Ross. The authorship is heavily debated, ranging from claims that Oscar didn’t have much to do with it at all, and didn’t directly write anything to claiming he was a huge collaborator and wrote whole chapters. The novel itself is okay, though according to many analyses and my own, the themes and insight into the self perception of queer people is extremely interesting. For example, a lot of the novel seems to go against the then burgeoning idea of homosexuality being a completely distinct ‘species’ from the heterosexual man. Teleny portrays sexuality as a polymorphous, fluid thing- thereby going further against the social norms of the time. It also shows, through the fact it was written from that perspective, the portrayal of the ‘underbelly’ of London, so to speak. Even the subtitle, “or, the reverse of the medal” essentially means ‘the other side of the coin’. This, again somewhat reflects Oscar’s view of his own ‘double life’.

The publishing history of this novel is complicated. Originally published anonymously, the publisher’s only clue was that it was written by a great wit (everybody assumed it was Oscar Wilde, who wasn’t particularly hidden about his sexuality at the time)(perhaps recklessly so) it was later reported that it was apparently written through a long and complicated game of telephone, beginning with Oscar Wilde and going through many different young men with each other’s cards until eventually they had a volume of inconsistent writing styles and inconsistent plot. Still decent though. And important