A selection of Oscar Wilde's best and most important plays - sharp, relevant and brilliant to this day
Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin on 16 October 1854. He studied at
Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford. He later
lived in London and married Constance Lloyd there in 1884. Wilde
was a leader of the Aesthetic Movement. His only novel, The Picture
of Dorian Gray, was first published in Lippincott's Monthly
Magazine in 1890. He published a revised and expanded edition in
1891 in response to negative reviews which criticised the book's
immorality. Wilde became famous through of the immense success of
his plays such as Lady Windemere's Fan (1892), An Ideal Husband
(1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).
In 1985, after a public scandal involving Wilde's relationship with
Lord Alfred Douglas, he was sentenced to two years' hard labour in
Reading Gaol for 'gross indecency'. His poem The Ballad of Reading
Gaol was based on his experiences in prison and was published in
1898. After his release, Wilde never lived in England again and
died in Paris on 30 November 1900. He is buried in P re Lachaise
cemetery.
[The Importance of Being Earnest] has a strong claim to being the
most perfect comedy in the English language
*Daily Telegraph*
[The Importance of Being Earnest] remains a thing of inimitable
brains and beauty; the sharpest of social satires, wrapped in the
most perfect of gossamer-light romantic comedies
*Scotsman*
Oscar Wilde's masterpiece about political chicanery, fraud,
blackmail and the hypocrisy of public figures retains an alarming
currency
*Express (on An Ideal Husband)*
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