The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He studied there at Trinity College and then at Oxford where he founded the cult of aestheticism. He published several books of stories and one novel The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1891. He had many successes as a playwright first with Lady Windermeres Fan in 1892 and all his plays were performed in London between 1892 and 1895. A dazzling wit and flamboyant figure Wildes career was cut short after his homosexuality was exposed and he was sentenced to two years imprisonment in 1895. Released in 1897 he fled to France where he died a broken man in 1900.