Wilde's parents were?Anglo-Irish?intellectuals in?Dublin. In his youth Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read?Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional?classicist, first at?Trinity College Dublin, then at?Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of?aestheticism, led by two of his tutors,?Walter Pater?and?John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.

As a spokesman for?aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art" and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel,?The Picture of Dorian Gray?(1890). The opportunity to construct aesthetic details precisely, and combine them with larger social themes, drew Wilde to write drama. He wrote?Salome?(1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.

At the height of his fame and success, while?The Importance of Being Earnest?(1895) was still being performed in London, Wilde prosecuted the?Marquess of Queensberry?for?criminal libel.[4]?The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover,?Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for?gross indecency?with men.[5]?After two more trials he was convicted and sentenced to two years'?hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897.[6]?During his last year in prison he wrote?De Profundis?(published posthumously in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials, forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On his release, he left immediately for France, and never returned to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work,?The Ballad of Reading Gaol?(1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.