The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Read Free Book Online Page A

in London, honeymoon in Paris and Dieppe.
1885
Moves into 16 Tite Street, Chelsea. Cyril Wilde born.
1886
Vyvyan Wilde born. Meets Robert Ross, to become his lifelong friend and, in 1897, his literary executor. Ross might have been Wilde’s first homosexual lover.
1887
Becomes the editor
of Lady’s World: A Magazine of Fashion and Society,
and changes its name to
Woman’s World.
Publication of‘The Canterville Ghost’ and ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’.
1888
The Happy Prince and Other Tales
published; on the whole well-received.
1889
‘Pen, Pencil and Poison’ (on the forger and poisoner Thomas Griffiths Wainewright), ‘The Decay of Lying’ (a dialogue in praise of artifice over nature and art over morality), ‘The Portrait of Mr W.H.’ (on the supposed identity of the dedicatee of Shakespeare’s sonnets) all published.
1890
The Picture of Dorian Gray
published in the July number of
Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine;
fierce debate between Wilde and hostile critics ensues. ‘The True Function and Value of Criticism’ (later revised and included in
Intentions
as ‘The Critic as Artist’) published.
1891
Wilde’s first meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas (‘Bosie’).
The Duchess of Padua
performed in New York. ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’ and ‘Preface to Dorian Gray’ published in February and March in the
Fortnightly Review.
The revised and extended edition of
The Picture of Dorian Gray
published by Ward, Lock and Company in April.
Intentions
(collection of critical essays),
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories
and
A House of Pomegranates
(fairy-tales) published.
1892
Lady Windermere’s Fan
performed at St James’s Theatre, London (February to July).
1893
Salome
published in French.
A Woman of No Importance
performed at Haymarket Theatre, London.
1894
Salome
published in English with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley; Douglas is the dedicatee.
The Sphinx,
a poem with illustrations by Charles Ricketts, published.
1895
An Ideal Husband
opens at Haymarket Theatre in January; it is followed by the hugely successful
The Importance of Being Earnest
at St James’s Theatre in February. On 28 February Wilde returns to his club, the Albemarle, to find a card from Douglas’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry, accusing Wilde of ‘posing as a somdomite’ (sodomite). Wilde quickly takes out an action accusing Queensberry of criminal libel. In April Queensberry appears at the Old Bailey and is acquitted, following a successful plea of justification on the basis that Wilde was guilty of homosexual behaviour. Wilde is immediately arrested, after ignoring his friends’ advice to flee the country. In May he is tried twice at the Old Bailey, and on 25 May sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour for ‘acts of gross indecency with another male person’. In July he is sent to Wandsworth Prison. In November he is declared bankrupt, and shortly afterwards transferred to Reading Gaol.
1896
Death of Wilde’s mother, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde (‘Speranza’).
1897
Wilde writes the long letter to Douglas that would be later entitled ‘De Profundis’. In May Wilde is released from prison, and sails for Dieppe by the night ferry. He never returns to Britain.
1898
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
published pseudonymously as C.3.3, Wilde’s cell-number in Reading Gaol. Wilde moves to Paris in February. Constance Wilde (who had by now changed her name to Holland) dies.
1899
Willie (b. 1852), Wilde’s elder brother, dies.
1900
In January Queensberry dies. By July Wilde himself is very ill with a blood infection. On 29 November he is received into the Roman Catholic Church, and dies on 30 November in the Hotel d’Alsace in Paris.
1905
An abridged version
of De Profundis,
edited by Robert Ross, published.
1908
The
Collected Works,
edited by Robert Ross, are published.

FURTHER READING
Editions and Collections
    Wilde, Oscar,
The Picture of Dorian Gray
(1890 edition with 1891), ed. Donald L. Lawler