60 Fun Facts About Oscar Wilde

In which city was Oscar Wilde born in 1854?

Dublin was home until Oxford: born at 21 Westland Row, he grew up on Merrion Square, where his mother hosted a leading literary salon.

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

Speranza is Italian for 'hope'. Under the name she went beyond verse, using the nationalist paper The Nation to urge Irishmen to rise in arms against British rule.

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

Ear and eye surgeon Sir William Wilde was knighted in 1864. That December a former patient's accusations against him ended in a libel trial, where she won a farthing in damages.

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

Their dresses caught fire at a dance, a ball at a County Monaghan country house: a sister's dress brushed an open flame as she danced, and both were so badly burned that they died within weeks.

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

His sister Isola, who died aged nine, was buried in County Longford in 1867. Wilde decorated an envelope to hold a lock of her hair and kept it until his own death in Paris.

Where was Wilde educated as a boarder from 1864 to 1871?

Portora Royal School in Enniskillen never got him onto a playing field: he took no part in the games, preferring books, and left with a scholarship to Trinity College.

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

J. P. Mahaffy thanked his pupil in print for improving his book Social Life in Greece. In 1877 he took Wilde to Greece, and Oxford suspended Wilde for a term for coming back late.

Which award for Greek did Wilde win at Trinity College in 1874?

The Berkeley Gold Medal was founded by the philosopher Bishop Berkeley. It later served Wilde as ready cash: back in London and short of money in 1883, he pawned it.

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

Magdalen gave him a classics scholarship in 1874. He left with a double first, telling a friend the dons were astonished to see 'the Bad Boy doing so well in the end'.

At Oxford, Wilde famously quipped about the struggle to live up to what?

His blue china: the quip, reported in several wordings, was denounced in a sermon at Oxford's University Church as 'a form of heathenism' that had to be fought and crushed.

On the day set for his Catholic baptism, what did young Wilde send the priest instead?

A bunch of altar lilies arrived at the Brompton Oratory in his place. He hovered at the Church's door for the rest of his life and was received into it only on his deathbed.

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

Walter Pater and John Ruskin pulled him two ways: Pater taught him to live for beauty, while Ruskin set undergraduates, Wilde by his own account among them, to building a road across Hinksey marsh.

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

'Ravenna' was a stroke of luck: he had passed through the Italian city on his way to Greece in 1877, and it was then announced as the prize subject. He recited the poem in the Sheldonian Theatre.

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

Bram Stoker, the future author of Dracula, won her hand. Wilde wrote asking her to return a little gold cross he had once given her, and said he was leaving Ireland, 'probably for good'.

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

Richard D'Oyly Carte feared Americans would miss the joke of Gilbert and Sullivan's satire without a live aesthete to laugh at, so he shipped them Wilde. A tour planned for four months ran to nearly a year.

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

Leadville's miners lowered him down a silver mine in a bucket for supper, where, he said, all three courses were whisky. In a saloon there he admired a notice begging patrons not to shoot the pianist, who was doing his best.

Which society beauty did Wilde tutor in Latin and later encourage to take up acting?

Lillie Langtry, the 'Jersey Lily', took the advice: her London stage debut in 1881 caused a sensation, and she went on to tour Britain and the United States with her own company.

Punch greeted Wilde's 1881 Poems with the squib 'The poet is Wilde, but his poetry's' what?

Tame was Punch's verdict, and the Oxford Union was harsher: when Wilde gave its library a copy, members voted to send it back as too heavily borrowed. The public disagreed, and the book ran through several editions.

Whom did Wilde marry on 29 May 1884?

Constance Lloyd was the daughter of an Irish barrister. After his conviction she moved abroad with their sons, yet in 1896 she travelled back from Genoa to tell him in prison, in person, that his mother had died.

What were the names of Wilde's two sons?

Cyril and Vyvyan were taken abroad and given the surname Holland to shield them from the scandal. Cyril was killed by a sniper in France in 1915; Vyvyan wrote the memoir Son of Oscar Wilde.

At which Chelsea address did the Wildes make their home?

Tite Street, No 16 (now 34), was decorated largely in white by the designer E. W. Godwin. In 1895 Wilde's creditors forced a sale of everything in it, and a curious crowd jostled through the rooms.

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

The Lady's World was a fashion monthly when Wilde took it over. He told the publisher the name had 'a certain taint of vulgarity', had it changed to The Woman's World and brought in serious articles by women.

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

James McNeill Whistler meant it as a charge of theft. He went on to accuse Wilde in print of helping himself to his ideas on art, and the friendship ended in a public quarrel.

Which 1888 Wilde collection contains his story of a jewelled statue and a swallow?

The Happy Prince and Other Tales opens with a statue who has a swallow strip off his jewels and gold leaf for the poor. Left shabby, he is pulled down and melted, but his leaden heart will not melt.

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

A boy actor called Willie Hughes is conjured in the story from puns on 'Will' and 'hues' in the sonnets themselves. 'You must believe in Willie Hughes,' Wilde told a friend; 'I almost do, myself.'

Wilde's essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism valued socialism chiefly because it would lead to what?

Individualism was the point: with private property gone and machines doing the dull work, Wilde argued, everyone could live as artists do. George Orwell summed up the vision as a world 'populated by artists'.

Which author was commissioned at the same 1889 dinner as Wilde's Dorian Gray?

Arthur Conan Doyle left with an order for The Sign of the Four: the editor of Lippincott's Monthly had dined him and Wilde together at London's Langham Hotel and signed up both. Doyle called it 'a golden evening'.

How many novels did Oscar Wilde write?

One: The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Daily Chronicle called it a poisonous book, and five years later Queensberry's counsel read passages from it in court to discredit its author.

Wilde wrote his play Salomé not in English but in which language?

French was the language he chose while staying in Paris. When the censor banned a London production for putting biblical characters on stage, he threatened to leave England and take French citizenship.

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

Aubrey Beardsley's drawings made the book famous, but Wilde was not won over: he told a friend they were like the naughty scribbles a precocious schoolboy makes in the margins of his copybook.

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

Lady Windermere's Fan brought calls of 'Author!' on its first night. Wilde strolled out before the curtain, cigarette in hand, and complimented the audience on liking the play almost as much as he did.

Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest opened in London in 1895 on which day of the calendar?

Valentine's Day 1895 gave Wilde two plays running in London at once. Within eight weeks he was under arrest and his name was struck from the playbills, and Earnest closed that May.

In The Importance of Being Earnest, what is 'bunburying'?

Keeping alternative personas in town and country takes its name from Bunbury, the imaginary invalid Algernon rushes off to visit whenever he wants to escape. Jack plays the same game with an invented brother called Ernest.

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

Bosie wrote the poem 'Two Loves', which ends on 'the love that dare not speak its name'. Asked in court what the phrase meant, Wilde gave a defence of it that drew applause, and some hisses, from the gallery.

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

The modern rules of boxing carry his name, but he only sponsored them: John Graham Chambers wrote them in 1867. By Wilde's account, he told the Marquess that the Oscar Wilde rule was to shoot on sight.

Which word did the Marquess of Queensberry misspell on the card he left at Wilde's club in 1895, sparking the libel case?

Sodomite came out as 'somdomite' on the card he left with the porter of the Albemarle Club. Wilde sued him for libel over it, against his friends' advice, and the trial that followed put Wilde himself in the dock.

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

Edward Carson had sat the same examinations as a student, usually ranking below him. Told who would face him in court, Wilde said Carson would do the job 'with all the added bitterness of an old friend'.

At which London hotel was Wilde arrested in April 1895?

The Cadogan Hotel is where friends urged him to leave for France while he still could. He sat on instead, drinking hock and seltzer until the police came, a scene John Betjeman later turned into a poem.

The 1885 clause that jailed Wilde for 'gross indecency' earned which nickname?

The Blackmailer's Charter became the nickname of a clause the MP Henry Labouchere added to a bill meant to protect girls. It made intimacy between men a crime even in private, as it remained in England and Wales until 1967.

Which clergyman stood surety for part of Wilde's bail between his trials?

The Reverend Stewart Headlam stood bail on principle, though the two had barely met. When Wilde finally walked out of prison, he was driven straight to Headlam's house in Bloomsbury.

What sentence did Wilde receive on 25 May 1895?

Two years' hard labour was the severest sentence the law allowed, and the judge said so with regret, calling it 'totally inadequate for a case such as this'. Cries of 'Shame!' rang out in court.

Which prison task did Wilde write left his finger-tips 'dull with pain'?

Picking oakum meant shredding old tarred ropes by hand for hours. In De Profundis Wilde lists it, with the plank bed and the loathsome food, among the things he must turn into a spiritual experience.

Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol first appeared under what?

Cell number C.3.3 stood for cell three on the third landing of block C. The poem ran through six printings before the seventh finally added 'Oscar Wilde', in brackets, to the title page.

At which London station was Wilde jeered by a crowd while being moved to Reading in 1895?

Clapham Junction's centre platform is where he stood for half an hour, handcuffed and in convict dress, while a crowd laughed. He wrote that for a year afterwards he wept every day at the same hour.

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

His wife, Laura Ellen, was living apart from him; Wooldridge, a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, killed her in a jealous rage and gave himself up at once. Wilde made him the man who 'had killed the thing he loved'.

What is De Profundis?

A 50,000-word prison letter to Douglas, it could not be posted, so Wilde carried it out with him on his release. A heavily cut version appeared in 1905, and the complete text only in 1962.

What name did Wilde adopt in exile after his release?

Sebastian Melmoth joined Saint Sebastian, the martyr shot with arrows, to the doomed hero of the old Gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer. He had visiting cards printed in the name; a surviving example is kept at Trinity College.

After his release, Wilde's allowance was to be stopped if he did what?

Moved back in with Douglas is exactly what he did, in a villa near Naples in late 1897. With both families threatening to stop the money, the pair parted within a few months.

Which scandal in France was Wilde drawn into in 1898, when secrets confided by a friend reached the press?

The Dreyfus affair reached him through his old friend Carlos Blacker, who told him of a secret plan to prove Dreyfus innocent. Wilde talked, the story was in the newspapers within weeks, and the friendship ended.

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

His wallpaper hung in a shabby room at the Hôtel d'Alsace in Paris, and Wilde joked too that he was dying beyond his means. The building is now L'Hôtel, a luxury boutique hotel.

Of what did Wilde die on 30 November 1900?

Meningitis set in after an infection of the right ear, which his doctors recorded as a complaint of several years' standing. The long-repeated story that syphilis killed him is rejected by later medical study and by his grandson.

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

Père Lachaise received his remains from his first grave at Bagneux in 1909. So many admirers kissed the tomb in lipstick that in 2011 the stone was cleaned and screened behind a glass wall.

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

Robert Ross's ashes went in at his own request: as Wilde's literary executor he had commissioned the tomb and asked the sculptor to leave a compartment for himself. He died in 1918 and waited 32 years to join his friend.

Under which informally named 2017 law was Wilde posthumously pardoned?

The Alan Turing law is named for the wartime codebreaker convicted of gross indecency in 1952 and pardoned in 2013. It pardoned the dead automatically, while living men had to apply to have their convictions removed.

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

His reader's card for the British Museum Reading Room was cancelled three weeks into his sentence, under a rule that covered anyone convicted of a crime. The new card was presented to his grandson on Wilde's birthday.

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

Stephen Fry: tall, witty and gay like his subject, he was seen as a near-perfect physical match for Wilde, with Jude Law cast opposite him as Lord Alfred Douglas.

In Wilde's The Canterville Ghost, what does Mr Otis offer the ghost the first time it rattles its chains?

A bottle of oil: 'I really must insist on your oiling those chains,' says the American minister, and his children's tricks soon leave the ghost the one who is terrified.

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

Sarah Bernhardt: the censor's rule against biblical characters on stage halted her rehearsals, and Wilde never saw the play performed, because its first staging came in 1896 while he was in prison.

In Wilde's fairy tale The Selfish Giant, which season never leaves the garden while the children are shut out?

Winter: snow, frost and hail settle in all year behind the Giant's wall, and the blossom comes back only when the children creep in again through a little hole.

Which church honoured Wilde with a memorial window in 1995, a century after the year he was jailed?

Westminster Abbey: the window in Poets' Corner sits above Chaucer's monument. His grandson Merlin Holland unveiled it, and Judi Dench read from The Importance of Being Earnest.