Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born at 21 Westland Row,in Dublin, Ireland, the second of three children from Sir William Wilde (knighted doctor, philanthropist) and Jane Wilde (poet).

He signed the Roll Book, "Oscar Fingal O'Flehertie Wilde" omitting to write 'Wills', his fourth Christian name and misspelling "O'Flahertie".

Wilde begins his studies at the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Ireland. He finishes in 1871 and is awarded the Royal School Scholarship to attend Trinity College in Dublin.

Wilde enrolls at Trinity College in Dublin to study classics. He is an outstanding student, earning the school's top prize in Greek.

At Oxford, Wilde also experienced the pleasures of homosexuality, and doesn't goes unnoticed with his flamboyant dress and mannerisms.

He received a bachelor's degree with top honors in classical moderations and classics. Then, he moved to London.

Wilde publishes his first book, a collection of verse entitled Poems, which served as a springboard for his 1882 United States lecture tour. He has established a reputation as a leader in the London aesthetic movement.

Wilde, short of funds, embarked, for one year, on a lecture tour of the United States, with over 140 lectures given in 260 days. During his time in America, he meets with Henry Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes and poet Walt Whitman, whom he greatly admires, and produces his first play, Vera, in New York. The play is unpopular.

Wilde does a lecture tour through England.

Wilde marries Constance Lloyd, the wealthy daughter of an English prominent barrister, at the Anglican St. James Church in Sussex Gardens, Paddington, London. The couple settles in the Chelsea neighborhood of the city.

The couple's first child, son Cyril, is born.

The Wildes' second son, Vyvyan, is born.

Wilde is hired to revitalize the failing magazine Lady's World, which he promptly renamed The Woman's World, adding serious articles on parenting, culture, and politics, keeping discussions of fashion and arts.
During his two years there, he turned the magazine around, insisting that the publication "deal not merely with what women wear, but with what they think, and what they feel."

A collection of short stories for children which contains five stories: “The Happy Prince”, “The Nightingale and the Rose”, “The Selfish Giant”, “The Devoted Friend”, and “The Remarkable Rocket”.

Wilde presents the essay in a Socratic dialogue, with the characters of Vivian and Cyril having a conversation throughout. The conversation, although playful and whimsical, promotes Wilde’s view of Romanticism over Realism.

Wilde’s only full lenght novel, which brought critical scrutiny in his time, but endured to become a classic work of fiction, and an icon in the author’s cannon of literary works. It appeared as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine.

A collection of short semi-comic mystery stories. It comprises: ″Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime″, ″The Canterville Ghost″, ″The Sphinx Without a Secret″, and ″The Model Millionaire″.

A collection of essays which features a revised version of the previously published “The Decay of Lying”.

A play in French which tells the Biblical story of Salome, but it is not produced because of a law forbidding the depiction of Biblical characters on stage.

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 undergraduate at Oxford. Wilde and Douglas spent increasing amounts of time together. They soon became lovers and were inseparable until Wilde's arrest four years later. Around this time Wilde also began liaisons with young men in London.

A collection of fairy tales that was published as a second collection for “The Happy Prince and Other Tales”. It comprises “The Young King”, “The Birthday of the Infanta”, “The Fisherman and his Soul”, and “The Star-Child”.

A four-act comedy first produced 22 February 1892 at the St James’s Theatre in London, and first published in 1893. Like many of Wilde’s comedies, it bitingly satirizes the morals of Victorian society, particularly marriage.

A play which premiered on 19 April 1893 at London’s Haymarket Theatre. Like Wilde’s other society plays, it satirizes English upper class society.

A five-act melodramatic tragedy set in Padua and written in blank verse. Its first performance was at the Broadway Theatre in New York under the title “Guido Ferranti” on 26 January 1891.

This poem tells of the Sphinx’s thousand weary centuries of history. It is one of the earliest incidences of Wilde alluding to his secret sexual life.

A comedic stage play which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honour.

Wilde's fourth West End play in three years premiered at St. James's Theatre in London. A farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play’s major themes are the triviality with which it treats such serious institutions as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways.

Wilde's mother dies. His wife Constance visits him in prison in order to break the news. Wilde pays for her funeral but is unable to afford a headstone, and so she is buried in an unmarked grave.

After a deathbed conversion to Catholicism, Oscar Wilde died of cerebral meningitis in Paris at the age of 46. He is buried first in Cimitiere de Bagneaux, but his tomb is later moved to Paris' famed Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Wilde's wife Constance dies in Italy following spinal surgery at the age of 40. The couple lived apart after the trials but never officially divorced.