Oscar Wilde was born in 1854, the second son of a leading Dublin surgeon, William Robert Wills Wilde, and Lady Jane “Speranza” Wilde, an accomplished Irish nationalist writer. After a degree at Trinity College Dublin, in 1874 Oscar Wilde arrived as an undergraduate at Magdalen College. By the time he graduated in 1878 he had become an Oxford icon whose quips were reported in the press; a decade later he was a world-famous writer and aesthete. In 1895, his arrest and imprisonment for gross indecency tragically destroyed a life without parallel. Wilde’s early death in 1900 cut short what might have been an equally astonishing second act.
This exhibition commemorates the 150th anniversary of Oscar Wilde’s arrival at Magdalen, exploring his four years as a student of the college, and the sensational life which followed. From his early years in Dublin, to his post-prison exile in Europe, Magdalen’s Wilde brings together original letters, drafts, first editions, images and works of art to illuminate the extraordinary life of one of Magdalen’s best-loved alumni. Magdalen’s Wilde is curated by Dr Sophie Duncan, Research Fellow, and Ms Anne Chesher, College Librarian.