60 Fun Facts About Oscar Wilde

In which city was Oscar Wilde born in 1854?

The house at 21 Westland Row is now the Oscar Wilde Centre of Trinity College.

Under what pen name did Wilde's mother Jane write poetry for the Young Irelanders?

It is Italian for 'hope'; she liked to believe, without foundation, that she had Italian ancestry.

What was the profession of Wilde's father, Sir William Wilde?

His dispensary for the city's poor was the forerunner of the Eye and Ear Hospital; he was knighted for census work.

How did Wilde's two elder half-sisters Mary and Emily die in 1871?

One brushed a candelabra or fire; her sister tried to douse the flames in the snow and burned too.

Wilde's poem 'Requiescat' was written in memory of whom?

He called her 'a golden ray of sunshine dancing about our home'.

Where in Enniskillen was Wilde educated from 1864 to 1871?

He claimed classmates thought him a prodigy for reading two facing pages at once and a three-volume novel in half an hour.

Which Trinity College professor did Wilde call 'my first and best teacher'?

Wilde helped him with the book Social Life in Greece and was later rusticated from Oxford after returning late from a Greek trip with him.

Which prize, Trinity College's highest academic award, did Wilde win in Greek?

It set him up for a demyship at Oxford, which he 'won easily'.

At which Oxford college did Wilde read Greats from 1874 to 1878?

He decorated his rooms with peacock feathers, lilies, sunflowers and objets d'art, and was rejected by the Oxford Union.

What did Wilde famously say he found 'harder and harder every day to live up to'?

Aesthetes adopted the line as a slogan; critics called it terribly vacuous.

On the day appointed for his 1878 Catholic baptism, what did Wilde send Father Bowden instead of himself?

He balked at pledging himself to any creed, though he kept a lifelong interest in Catholic liturgy and was received on his deathbed.

Which two Oxford figures were the leading influences on Wilde's aestheticism?

Wilde carried Pater's Studies in the History of the Renaissance on his travels and called it 'that book that has had such a strange influence over my life'.

For which poem did Wilde win the 1878 Newdigate Prize at Oxford?

It recalled his visit to the Italian city the previous year; he read it at Encaenia and graduated with a double first.

Wilde's childhood sweetheart Florence Balcombe married which author in 1878?

Wilde wrote to her about 'the two sweet years – the sweetest years of all my youth', then left Ireland for good.

Which impresario invited Wilde to lecture across North America in 1882 to help promote Patience?

Patience had caricatured aestheticism; a tour planned for four months ran nearly a year.

In which Colorado mining town did Wilde claim to have drunk whiskey with miners on his American tour?

The San Francisco Chronicle said the city was divided between those who found him an original thinker and those who found him 'the most pretentious fraud ever perpetrated on a groaning public'.

Which famous beauty, introduced to Wilde in 1877, did he tutor in Latin and encourage to take up acting?

She wrote that he 'possessed a remarkably fascinating and compelling personality'.

How did Punch sum up the 1881 collection Poems, punning on its author's name?

The Oxford Union voted narrowly to condemn the book for plagiarism and returned its presentation copy.

Whom did Wilde marry on 29 May 1884?

She had an allowance of £250 a year; their Chelsea house was renovated over seven months at great expense.

What were the names of Wilde's two sons?

Vyvyan later wrote Son of Oscar Wilde; his own son Merlin Holland became Wilde's biographer and defender.

At which Chelsea address did the Wildes make their home?

Queensberry turned up there uninvited in 1894; the address was No 16, now 34.

What was the original title of the magazine Wilde edited from 1887 and soon renamed?

He added serious articles on parenting and politics but tired of office life and left in 1889; his salary was £6 a week.

When Wilde wished he had made a witticism, which artist replied 'You will, Oscar, you will'?

An 1889 article claiming Wilde passed off Whistler's jokes as his own ended their friendship.

Which 1888 Wilde collection includes the title tale of a jewelled statue and a swallow?

A House of Pomegranates followed in 1891, dedicated to his wife.

Wilde's 'The Portrait of Mr. W. H.' argues that Shakespeare's sonnets were written for whom?

'You must believe in Willie Hughes,' Wilde told a friend, 'I almost do, myself.'

What is the title of Wilde's only political essay, which argued for abolishing private property?

George Orwell summarised its vision as a world 'populated by artists, each striving after perfection'.

In which American periodical did The Picture of Dorian Gray first appear, in July 1890?

For the 1891 book he added six chapters, cut some homoerotic passages and added a preface of twenty-two epigrams.

How many novels did Wilde write?

The Daily Chronicle called it 'unclean' and 'poisonous'; The Guardian later ranked it among the 100 best novels in English.

In which language did Wilde write Salomé?

The Lord Chamberlain refused it a licence for depicting biblical characters; it was first staged in Paris in 1896 while he was in prison.

Who provided the illustrations for the 1894 English edition of Salomé?

The translation was by Lord Alfred Douglas.

Which was Wilde's first hit society comedy, premiered at St James's Theatre in February 1892?

It earned him £7,000 in its first year, roughly £769,000 in today's money.

On what date did The Importance of Being Earnest open at St James's Theatre?

Actor-manager George Alexander had Wilde cut it from four acts to three during rehearsals.

What is 'bunburying', the practice at the heart of The Importance of Being Earnest?

H. G. Wells reviewed the play, praising humour 'that is Gilbertian with innumerable spangles of that wit that is all his own'.

By what nickname was Wilde's lover Lord Alfred Douglas known?

Wilde was earning up to £100 a week from his plays and indulged Douglas's every whim.

Outside the Wilde affair, what is the Marquess of Queensberry best remembered for?

Wilde joked that he did not know the Queensberry rules 'but the Oscar Wilde rule is to shoot on sight'.

What did Queensberry write on the card he left at the Albemarle Club days after Earnest opened?

The misspelling was his; the club was the Albemarle, and the card triggered Wilde's disastrous libel suit.

Which barrister, a Trinity College contemporary of Wilde's, cross-examined him for Queensberry?

Carson caught Wilde lying about his age under oath and later asked the Solicitor General 'Can we not let up on the fellow now?'.

Where in Knightsbridge was Wilde found by Robbie Ross before his arrest in April 1895?

Friends urged him to catch the boat train to France; he could only say 'The train has gone. It's too late.'

Wilde was arrested for 'gross indecency' under which part of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885?

The Act had also raised the age of consent from 13 to 16 just ten years earlier.

Which clergyman put up most of Wilde's £5,000 bail between his trials?

He disagreed with Wilde's treatment by press and courts; Wilde then hid at the home of Ernest and Ada Leverson.

What sentence did Wilde receive on 25 May 1895?

It was the maximum allowed; the judge still called it 'totally inadequate for a case such as this'.

What work was Wilde made to do at Pentonville Prison?

Prisoners were allowed to read only the Bible and The Pilgrim's Progress.

By what designation was Wilde known in Reading Gaol?

Third cell, third floor, C ward; The Ballad of Reading Gaol was first credited to 'C33'.

At which London station was Wilde jeered and spat at while being moved to Reading in 1895?

A rainbow plaque recalling the scene was unveiled there in 2019.

Charles Thomas Wooldridge, whose hanging inspired The Ballad of Reading Gaol, had murdered whom?

It was the first hanging at Reading in 18 years; the poem's refrain holds that 'each man kills the thing he loves'.

What is De Profundis?

He was not allowed to send it, but could take it with him on release; it was published in full only in 1962.

What name did Wilde adopt in exile after his release?

It combined Saint Sebastian with Melmoth the Wanderer, the Gothic novel by his great-uncle Charles Maturin.

How much did his estranged wife send Wilde each week after his release, until her death in 1898?

She refused to see him or let him see the boys, especially after he was reunited with Douglas at Rouen.

Which Parisian cause célèbre did Wilde aid in 1898 by passing on a document naming Esterhazy as traitor?

The paper came from his friend Carlos Blacker and appeared in Le Siècle as 'Lettre d'un Diplomate'.

Near the end, Wilde joked that he was fighting a duel to the death with what?

The wallpaper won; the dingy Hôtel d'Alsace is now the fashionable L'Hôtel.

Of what did Wilde die on 30 November 1900?

His doctors traced it to the ear injury from his prison collapse; his grandson rejects the old syphilis theory.

In which Paris cemetery does Wilde's Jacob Epstein tomb stand?

He was moved there from Bagneux in 1909; a glass barrier went up in 2011 to stop admirers' lipstick kisses.

Whose ashes were placed in a small compartment of Wilde's tomb in 1950?

Ross commissioned the tomb and was Wilde's literary executor and most loyal friend.

Under which informally named 2017 law was Wilde posthumously pardoned?

He was one of an estimated 50,000 men pardoned for offences no longer on the statute book.

What did the British Library restore to Wilde in 2025, 130 years after revoking it?

His grandson Merlin Holland accepted the new card on his behalf.

Who played Wilde in the 1997 film Wilde, based on Richard Ellmann's Pulitzer-winning biography?

Rupert Everett wrote and starred in a 2018 film about the years after prison.

The 1891 collection A House of Pomegranates carried a dedication to whom?

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories appeared the same year.

Which actress was rehearsing Salome in London when the Lord Chamberlain refused it a licence?

Plays depicting biblical characters were banned; Salome was not staged until 1896 in Paris.

Which relative of Wilde wrote the Gothic novel that inspired his exile alias?

Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer gave him the surname; the first name honoured Saint Sebastian.

Which two performers read at the 1995 unveiling of Wilde's Westminster Abbey window?

The window at Poets' Corner sits above the monument to Geoffrey Chaucer and was unveiled by grandson Merlin Holland.