| 1854 | Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde is born on Octo ber 16 in Dublin to William Wilde, a prominent oph thalmologist, and Jane Francesca Elgee, a renowned poet and journalist. |
| 1864 | Wilde enters the Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, where he excels, and subsequently takes First Prize in classics and Second Prize in drawing. |
| 1867 | On February 23 Wilde’s sister Isola dies of a sudden fever. Profoundly affected by the death, Wilde keeps a lock of her hair until the end of his life. |
| 1871 | Wilde enrolls as a Royal School Scholar at Trinity College, Dublin, where he earns the Foundation Schol arship (the highest honor bestowed on an under graduate) as well as the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek and the Demyship Scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford. |
| 1874 | As a student at Magdalen College, Wilde finds a mentor in Walter Pater, a tutor and writer whose works, along with those of the Pre-Raphaelites, inspire Wilde to sub scribe to the Aesthetic movement, which promotes “art for art’s sake.” Wilde develops a reputation for his flam boyant mannerisms, including his dandyism and long hair. |
| 1876 | Wilde’s father dies. |
| 1878 | Wilde wins the Newdigate Prize for his poem “Ravenna,” as well as “First In Greats” by his examiners. Wilde’s eldest brother, Henry Wilson, dies. |
| 1879 | Upon graduation, Wilde moves to London with Frank Miles, a friend and portrait painter, and begins his writ ing career. |
| 1881 | Wilde publishes his first volume of verse, Poems, which is well received by critics. He becomes the subject of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operetta Patience, which sati rizes the Aesthetic movement. |
| 1882 | Wilde embarks upon a series of lectures in the United States. Originally scheduled to last only four months, the tour is extended to fifty lectures and lasts nearly a year. Wilde meets Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Walt Whitman, and Henry James. He also arranges for his first play, Vera, to be staged in New York; it is a commercial flop. |
| 1883 | Wilde continues his lecture tour throughout the United Kingdom. |
| 1884 | On May 29 Wilde marries Constance Lloyd, the heiress of a Dublin barrister. The couple resides in Chelsea, a London neighborhood popular with artists, writers, and intellectuals. Wilde writes his second unsuccessful play, The Duchess of Padua. |
| 1885 | Wilde’s first son, Cyril, is born. The Criminal Law Amendment Act, under which Wilde would later be prosecuted for engaging in “gross indecency,” is passed. |
| 1886 | Another son, Vyvyan, is born. |
| 1887 | Wilde accepts an editor’s position with Woman’s World, a popular magazine, where he remains for two years. |
| 1888 | A collection of fairy tales, The Happy Prince and Other Tales, is published. |
| 1889 | Wilde’s story “The Portrait of Mr. W. H.” appears in Blackwood’s Magazine; it asserts that the poems have a hooerotic subtext. “The Decay of Lying,” a dialogue on Aesthetics and other subjects, is published in The Nine teenth Century, a literary review. |
| 1890 | The Picture of Dorian Gray appears in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, published in Philadelphia. |
| 1891 | The publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray, an ex tended version of the magazine piece and Wilde’s only novel, arouses controversy over the work’s morality but makes little money. Wilde also produces several works that reflect his varied interests: Intentions, a collection of dialogues on Wilde’s Aesthetic philosophy, and Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories, a volume of short fiction. He meets Lord Alfred Douglas, an undergradu ate at Oxford, and they soon become lovers. Wilde also befriends André Gide, the French writer and spokesman for homosexual rights. The House of Pomegranates, a collection of short stories, is published. |
| 1892 | In February the first of Wilde’s domestic comedies, Lady Windermere’s Fan, opens at the St. James’ Theatre to ac colades. The financial success enables him to continue writing plays, and he completes Salomé, a reinterpretation in French of John the Baptist’s martyrdom; he is unable to produce the play because of a law prohibiting theatrical depictions of biblical characters. |
| 1893 | Wilde again enjoys theatrical success with his second do mestic comedy, A Woman of No Importance. He becomes friendly with Max Beerbohm, a fledgling writer at Ox ford who soon becomes Britain’s foremost caricaturist; his first subject is Wilde. |
| 1894 | In Paris, actress Sarah Bernhardt gives a performance of Salomé. In April “A Defence of Cosmetics,” Beerbohm’s parody of Wildean Aestheticism, appears in The Yellow Book, an alternative journal. |
| 1895 | Wilde is immensely popular on the London theater cir cuit: An Ideal Husband is performed at the Haymarket Theatre, and The Importance of Being Earnest is at the St. James’. Wilde becomes involved in three trials: In the first he sues the Marquess of Queensbury, the father of his lover Lord Alfred Douglas, for libel after the mar quess refers to him in a note as a “somdomite” (sic). The defense counsel denounces Dorian Gray as an im moral book, and enough evidence is presented to try Wilde for engaging in homosexual activity. After two tri als he is sentenced to Wandsworth prison for two years’ hard labor. Wilde’s wife and sons relocate to Switzerland and adopt an old family name, “Holland.” Wilde is transferred from Wandsworth to Reading Gaol. |
| 1897 | While detained, he writes De Profundis, a dramatic monologue and biography addressed to Alfred Douglas that is published in part in 1905. Upon his release from prison, Wilde goes into exile to the Continent, where he lives under the alias “Sebastian Melmoth.” |
| 1898 | The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Wilde’s final work, is pub lished. Wilde also publishes two letters on prison re form. Constance dies. Wilde briefly reunites with Douglas but spends most of his time traveling through out Europe, occasionally writing for Parisian journals. |
| 1900 | Wilde converts to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed, after a lifelong flirtation with the religion. He dies of cerebral meningitis at the Hotel D’Alsace in Paris on November 30. He is buried at Lachaise Cemetery, Paris. |
| 1905 | Wilde’s play Salomé inspires German composer Richard Strauss to write a one-act opera of the same name. |
