“And yet it was not the mystery, but the comedy of suffering that struck him; its absolute uselessness, its grotesque want of meaning. How incoherent everything seemed! How lacking in all harmony! He was amazed at the discord between the shallow optimism of the day, and the real facts of existence. He was still very young.”

Irish author, poet and playwright

Oscar Wilde was an Irish author, poet and playwright of the late 19th century. He became one of London’s most popular and influential dramatists in the early 1890s, and is closely associated with the Aestheticism movement. He is best known for The Picture of Dorian Gray, his epigrams, plays and children’s stories. His writing often combines wit, style and pointed observation, and his reputation is also shaped by his 1895 criminal conviction for gross indecency and for practising homosexual acts.