General Facts

1. Wilde had brown hair and grey eyes and was considered handsome by both men and women.
2. The majority of his great literary works were written between 1886 and 1895.
3. Wilde was very generous with his wife’s annual allowance, giving her £250 a year - equivalent to around £22,100 in today’s money. This gave her plenty of financial freedom, something which many women of the day did not have.
4. Oscar’s sister Isola tragically died at the age of nine from meningitis; his poem Requiescat is dedicated to her memory.
5. Her death took a huge toll on him, and for the rest of his life he carried a lock of her hair in a sealed, decorated envelope.
6. Oscar’s father was Queen Victoria’s eye surgeon - he was even knighted for performing the position’s duties so well.
7. Oscar had a step brother (Henry) and two step sisters (Emily and Mary) from his father’s relationship prior to meeting his mother. Tragically, when Mary was just 22 and Emily 24, the two died in a fire.
8. There is a statue of Wilde in Merrion Square in Dublin. It depicts Oscar reclining on a rock and is made out of granite, green nephrite jade, white jadeite and thulite.
9. His last words were said to be “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go.”
10. Since his death, Oscar has had nine full biographies written about him, one of which actually written by his grandson, Merlin Holland, in 1997.