Poems Without Frontiers

Born in Dublin to a professional family, the middle child of three, Wilde attended Trinity College, Dublin, and Magdalen College, Oxford where he studied classics and wrote his award winning poem, "Ravenna". He settled in London where he became a journalist and published his first collection, "Poems", in 1881 before lecturing in North America on aesthetics.

He married Constance Lloyd upon his return who bore two sons. He resumed his work as a journalist but also wrote several prose works and witty plays. The works were well received and he became a highly successful, if flamboyant, playwright.

His passion for Lord Alfred Douglas, "Bosie", from 1891 led to his arraignment for gross indecency and his subsequent imprisonment in Reading jail. After his release in 1897, he emigrated to Paris where he wrote his last work, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol". He died from meningitis in 1900.