H.Montgomery Hyde: Oscar Wilde

Aesthete, dandy, poet, dramatist and philosopher Oscar Wilde's wit and charm dazzled society in London, America and Paris in the late 1880s. But the year 1895 brought Wilde literary triumph -with two plays achieving phenomenal success in London's West End -and personal disaster. Urged on by his friend Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde brought a libel action against Lord Alfred's father, the eccentric Marquess of Queensberry. The ensuing trials at the Old Bailey revealed Wilde's reckless adventures in the London underworld and he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment with hard labour.