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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 Pere 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) *
