# Oscar Wilde

The first fact about Oscar Wilde in a public catalog that wants a welfare reading is a writ, not a witticism. On 18 March 1895 he opened a criminal-libel prosecution against Queensberry (Famous Trials https://famous-trials.com/wilde/327-home; London Archives https://www.thelondonarchives.org/). That is his deed. The Crown’s later indecency trials at the Old Bailey (https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/) are the state’s use of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885. Britannica (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Wilde) dates conviction to 25 May 1895 and two years’ hard labour. He did not author Labouchere. This catalog stores those trials as facts about a targeted person, with later minority-rights memory, not as his negative Contribution. Poems (1881) is luxury-aesthetic quietism. The 1882 US tour (Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov/) is a paying brand — Sarony’s camera is portrait only, not a moral X-ray. The Decay of Lying in Intentions (1891) prefers beautiful untruth. Salomé (1893) is a beheading-spectacle; the English-stage ban is the Lord Chamberlain’s. Dorian Gray (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/174) glamorises harm. Earnest (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/844) teaches false names. Ideal Husband teaches political blackmail. 1895 bankruptcy follows the chosen suit. De Profundis (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/921), issued 1905, exposes an addressee. Later saint-captions erase the writ (Cambridge companion https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-oscar-wilde/). The offsets are also documents. Trinity College Dublin (https://www.tcd.ie/) is the Irish civic student file. The Soul of Man under Socialism (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1017) is an inequality brief. The same comedies are access. The Ballad of Reading Gaol (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/301) is his post-release gallows poem. British Library (https://www.bl.uk/people/oscar-wilde) and National Library of Ireland (https://www.nli.ie/) are later doors. Release on 19 May 1897 reopened authorship. What the score must not say: that he drafted 1885 s.11; that hard labour is his welfare gift to the prison; that Sarony proves a character; that 1891’s socialist essay rebates the writ; that a 1930 plaque undid 3 April 1895. Direct is honest for the writ and the books. Complex is honest for the Crown, the ban, 1905, and scans. Confidence is high on those URLs, medium on Bunbury-as-data and luxury-verse-as-inequality. 18 March is not 25 May. 1891 Soul of Man is not 1881 Poems. Related people are [Shakespeare](/people/william-shakespeare) as comedy counterpart, [Voltaire](/people/voltaire) as French wit-and-trial counterpart, [Goethe](/people/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe) as European-poet counterpart, Rousseau as a feeling-and-society counterpart, Constance Lloyd, Robert Ross, Lord Alfred Douglas, Queensberry as the card-and-suit adversary. The useful question is which public pages still move justice, rights, and knowledge drivers without turning a targeted person into the author of his own sentence. Keep 1882 1891 18 March 1895 25 May 1895 and 1898 on separate dates. Remaining dated instruments kept after dropping later editions, museums, and split rows: 1895-03-18 [Wilde swears a criminal-libel prosecution against the Marquess of Queensberry](/facts/wil-queensberry-libel-1895); 1890-07-01 [Lippincott’s Dorian Gray prints a public novel of influence, blackmail, and unpunished harm](/facts/wil-dorian-cruelty-1890); 1895-02-14 [The Importance of Being Earnest premieres a comedy of false names and double lives](/facts/wil-earnest-bunbury-1895); 1882-01-03 [The 1882 United States lecture tour sells aestheticism as a paying celebrity brand](/facts/wil-us-tour-commodity-1882); 1881-06-01 [Poems (1881) prints a luxury-aesthetic public that treats ordinary labour as offstage](/facts/wil-class-aesthetic-1881); 1891-01-01 [The Decay of Lying prints a public brief against realism and factual reporting as art’s duty](/facts/wil-decay-lying-1891); 1893-02-01 [Salomé is issued in French as a public beheading-spectacle play](/facts/wil-salome-spectacle-1893); 1895-07-01 [Bankruptcy follows the trials, leaving a public unpaid chain of labour and rent](/facts/wil-bankruptcy-1895); 1895-04-03 [Wilde stays in London to fight Queensberry rather than leave, polarising a public into camps](/facts/wil-litigate-not-leave-1895); 1895-01-03 [An Ideal Husband stages public blackmail around a politician’s hidden file](/facts/wil-ideal-husband-blackmail-1895); 1892-02-20 [Lady Windermere’s Fan teaches a public of secret letters and reputation police](/facts/wil-windermere-double-1892); 1893-04-19 [A Woman of No Importance prints a double standard that still centres the witty lord](/facts/wil-woman-no-importance-1893); 1881-07-01 [The same 1881 Poems offers beauty as a substitute for civic duty](/facts/wil-poems-quietism-1881); 1892-06-01 [The Lord Chamberlain refuses an English-stage Salomé; Wilde’s share is as the banned author, not as censor](/facts/wil-salome-english-ban-1892); 1882-02-01 [The same 1882 US tour delivers public lectures on art and the house beautiful](/facts/wil-us-lectures-access-1882); 1891-04-01 [Ward, Lock issues the 1891 book Dorian Gray as a public novel](/facts/wil-dorian-access-1891); 1891-02-01 [The Soul of Man under Socialism is issued as a public brief against property-as-duty](/facts/wil-soul-of-man-1891); 1895-02-15 [Earnest becomes a public comedy in the West End repertory](/facts/wil-earnest-access-1895); 1892-02-21 [Lady Windermere’s Fan opens a public paying audience to a problem-play of a woman’s name](/facts/wil-windermere-access-1892); 1895-04-05 [The Old Bailey libel trial collapses and the Crown turns the file on Wilde as the targeted person](/facts/wil-libel-trial-state-1895). Later Loeb, UNESCO, and encyclopedia pages are evidence, not additional acts.

## Dated facts

- 1898: The Ballad of Reading Gaol is issued as a public poem against the prison hanging. https://factrail.ai/facts/wil-reading-ballad-1898. Sources: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/301, https://www.bl.uk/.
- 1897: Release from Reading Gaol returns him to public authorship rather than to silence. https://factrail.ai/facts/wil-reading-release-writing. Sources: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Wilde.
- De Profundis is written in Reading Gaol in 1897 as a long prison letter; the 1905 abridgement is later and is not this instrument. https://factrail.ai/facts/wil-de-profundis-1897. Sources: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/902, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Wilde.
- 1895: Bankruptcy follows the trials, leaving a public unpaid chain of labour and rent. https://factrail.ai/facts/wil-bankruptcy-1895. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Wilde, https://www.thelondonarchives.org/.
- On 25 May 1895 Wilde is convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years’ hard labour. https://factrail.ai/facts/wil-conviction-1895. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Wilde, https://famous-trials.com/wilde/327-home.
- 1895: The Old Bailey libel trial collapses and the Crown turns the file on Wilde as the targeted person. https://factrail.ai/facts/wil-libel-trial-state-1895. Sources: https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/, https://famous-trials.com/wilde/327-home.
- 1895: Wilde stays in London to fight Queensberry rather than leave, polarising a public into camps. https://factrail.ai/facts/wil-litigate-not-leave-1895. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Wilde, https://famous-trials.com/wilde/327-home.
- 1895: Wilde swears a criminal-libel prosecution against the Marquess of Queensberry. https://factrail.ai/facts/wil-queensberry-libel-1895. Sources: https://www.thelondonarchives.org/, https://famous-trials.com/wilde/327-home.
- 1895: Earnest becomes a public comedy in the West End repertory. https://factrail.ai/facts/wil-earnest-access-1895. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Wilde, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/844.
- 1895: The Importance of Being Earnest premieres a comedy of false names and double lives. https://factrail.ai/facts/wil-earnest-bunbury-1895. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Wilde, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/844.
- 1895: An Ideal Husband opens as a public comedy about political hypocrisy. https://factrail.ai/facts/wil-ideal-husband-access-1895. Sources: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/355, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Wilde.
- 1895: An Ideal Husband stages public blackmail around a politician’s hidden file. https://factrail.ai/facts/wil-ideal-husband-blackmail-1895. Sources: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/355, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Wilde.

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/oscar-wilde