Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900
Collection, 1851-1957 (bulk 1877-1957) 3 boxes (1.26 linear feet) Acquisition: Purchases and gifts, 1959-1975
Access: Open for research
Processed by: Chelsea Dinsmore, 2002
RLIN Record ID: Table of Contents Biographical Sketch
Scope and Contents
Folder List
Index of Correspondents ...
Index of Third-Party Works Biographical Sketch Oscar Fingal O'Flaherty Wills Wilde, born in 1854 in Dublin, Ireland, was the second son of Sir William Robert and Lady Jane Francesca Wilde. At the age of ten, Wilde entered the well-known Portora Royal School, where he excelled in Greek studies. His interest in Greek continued at Trinity College, Dublin, where John Mahaffy, an eminent Greek scholar who later took Wilde on a tour of Italy, was his tutor. Wilde was awarded a scholarship in classics from Magdalene College, Oxford, which he entered in 1874. During his fourth year at Oxford, Wilde won the prestigious Newdigate Prize for imitative poetry with a verse praising Ravenna, a city he had visited with Mahaffy and the burial site of Dante. In addition to his studies, Wilde began to develop his role as poseur and aesthete. Wilde received his BA in 1878 and, after an additional year at Oxford, went to London where he began writing. In 1880 Wilde published Vera; or, The Nihilists, and in 1881 he was hired by Richard D'Oyly Carte to boost Gilbert and Sullivan's new opera Patience in America by means of a lecture tour. Dressed in black velvet and a full length fur coat, he spoke on the new aestheticism from New York to San Francisco. He met with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louisa May Alcott, Walt Whitman, and Jefferson Davies, among others. | |
|
