A Critic in Pall Mall

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, also known as Oscar Wilde, was an Irish poet and playwright who lived from 16 October 1854 to 30 November 1900. He wrote in a variety of genres throughout the 1880s before becoming one of London's most well-known playwrights in the early 1890s. The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays and epigrams, as well as the circumstances surrounding his meningitis-related early death at age 46 and criminal conviction for gross indecency for consensual homosexual activities in "one of the earliest celebrity trials," is what people will remember him for most. Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin, Wilde's parents were. French and German were picked up by young Wilde with ease. While in college, Wilde read the Greats and distinguished himself as an outstanding student of classical literature, first at Trinity College Dublin and then at Oxford. He became involved with the aestheticism movement, which was being spearheaded by two of his professors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. Wilde moved to London after finishing college and became a part of rich social and cultural circles. Queensberry intended to publicly humiliate Wilde by tossing a bouquet of decaying vegetables onto the stage, but Wilde was informed and had Queensberry turned away from the theater.