She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust,"
felt the fingers of death before their time. Like most of Wilde's early melodies, his lament is sung to a borrowed lyre, but the thing is so sweet that it seems ungracious to remember its indebtedness to Hood.[2]
Both Sir William and Lady Wilde busied themselves in collecting folk-lore. Wilde in boyhood travelled with his father to visit ruins and gather superstitions. His childhood must have had a plentiful mythology. Wilde and his brother were not excluded from the extravagant conversations of their mother's salon. Any precocity they showed was encouraged, if only by that curious atmosphere of agile cleverness. There are no valuable anecdotes of his childhood, but it is said that his mother always thought that Oscar was less brilliant than her elder son.
When he was eleven he was sent to the Portora Royal School at Enniskillen, where he behaved well, did not particularly distinguish himself, did not play games, read a great deal, and was very bad at mathematics. In the holidays he travelled with his mother in France. Leaving Portora in 1873, he went with a scholarship to Trinity College, Dublin, where, in 1874, he won the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek. In the same year he left Dublin for Oxford, matriculating at Magdalen and taking a scholarship. In 1876 he took a First Class in Classical Moderations, always a sufficient proof of sound learning, and, in 1878, he took a First Class in Literae Humaniores. In 1877 he travelled in Italy and went to Greece with Professor Mahaffy. This experience had great influence on his attitude towards art, filled the classical dictionary with life, and made the figures of mythology so luminous that he was tempted to overwork them. In 1878 he read the Newdigate Prize Poem in the Sheldonian Theatre.
On leaving Oxford he brought to London a small income, a determination to conquer the town, and a reputation as a talker. He took rooms in the Adelphi. He adopted a fantastic costume to emphasize his personality, and, perhaps to excuse it, spoke of the ugliness of modern dress. In three years he had won the recognition of Punch, which, thenceforward, caricatured him several times a month.
In 1881 he published his first book, a volume of poems, discussed in the next chapter. Five editions of it were immediately sold. His costume and identification with the æsthetic movement of that time determined his selection as a lecturer in America. The promoters of his tour there were, however, anxious to help not the æsthetic movement but the success of a play that laughed at it. He went to America in 1882, and again in 1883, on the latter occasion to see the production of Vera. On his return from the first visit he went to Paris, where he finished The Duchess of Padua, which was not published till 1908. In 1891 it was produced in New York, when twenty copies were printed for the actors and for private circulation. It is likely that in 1883, while in Paris, he began The Sphinx, upon which he worked at various periods before its publication in 1894.
Returning to England, he took rooms in Charles Street, Haymarket, and lectured in the provinces. In 1884 he married Constance Mary Lloyd, who brought him enough money to enable him to take No. 16 Tite Street, Chelsea, which was his home until 1895. He wrote for a number of periodical newspapers, and, for two years, edited The Woman's World.
In 1885 'The Truth of Masks' appeared as 'Shakespeare and Stage Costume' in The Nineteenth Century. In 1886 he began that course of conduct that was to lead to his downfall in 1895. In 1887 he published 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime,' 'The Canterville Ghost,' 'The Sphinx without a Secret,' and 'The Model Millionaire,' which were issued together in 1891. In 1888 he published The Happy Prince and other Tales. In 1889 'The Portrait of Mr. W. H.' appeared in Blackwood's Magazine. 'Pen, Pencil and Poison' appeared in The Fortnightly Review in 1889, 'The Decay of Lying' in The Nineteenth Century in the same year, and 'The Critic as Artist' in The Nineteenth Century in 1890. A House of Pomegranates and Intentions, in which these three essays were reprinted with 'The Truth of Masks,' were published in 1891. In the same year 'The Soul of Man under Socialism' appeared in The Fortnightly Review. The Picture of Dorian Gray appeared in Lippincott's Magazine in 1890. The Preface was published separately in The Fortnightly Review in 1891. He added several chapters, and The Portrait of Dorian Gray was published in book form in 1891. Much of his time was spent in Paris, and there, before the end of the year, he wrote Salomé. In 1892 that play was prohibited by the Censor when Madame Sarah Bernhardt had begun to rehearse it for production at the Palace Theatre. It was first produced in Paris, at the Théâtre de L'Œuvre, in 1896. Lady Windermere's Fan was produced on February 20, 1892, by Mr. George Alexander at the St. James's Theatre. A Woman of No Importance was produced on April 19, 1893, by Mr. H. Beerbohm Tree at the Haymarket Theatre, where, on January 3, 1895, he produced An Ideal Husband. On February 14, 1895, Mr. George Alexander produced The Importance of Being Earnest at the St. James's.