The Fall of the House of Wilde (80 page)

Oscar Wilde dressed in the garb of an Ossianic hero, taken by one of the first professional photographers in Ireland.

 

Oscar as a young boy, looking dreamy and distant.

 

Irish Nationalists involved in the 1848 uprising. Jane Wilde wrote for the
Nation
newspaper and moved in the same circles.

 

Dublin's third trade fair in 1874, displaying advances in manufacturing, science and techology, was of great interest to Sir William.

 

William Wilde in 1875, the year before his death. He had by this time lost three children and his health was ailing.

 

Oscar at Oxford in 1878, the year he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry and was awarded a First in Greats.

 

James Whistler was Oscar's idol, mentor, friend, rival and ultimately bitter enemy.

 

Oscar in London in 1881. His first volume of poetry, published by himself, elicited a wrathful response from critics.

 

Oscar, early in his 1882 lecture tour of America, posing for interviewers at his hotel.

 

Cartoons of Oscar. For much of the tour he was subjected to abuse by the press in America and Britain, derided for his effete style and for acting as an apostle for aestheticism.

 

Oscar pictured towards the end of his lecture tour. He had matured and was now taken seriously by the public. He had also learnt to hone his image: he returned as ‘Oscar Wilde'.

 

Constance Wilde, 1882, aged twenty-four, two years before her marriage to Oscar. She was described by many as a Pre-Raphaelite beauty.