Tuckahoe NY Pride

Oscar Wilde was an Irish playwright, novelist, and essayist famed for razor-sharp wit and “art for art’s sake.” His society comedies—especially The Importance of Being Earnest—satirize Victorian hypocrisy, while The Picture of Dorian Gray probes beauty, secrecy, and moral cost. Wilde had relationships with men, notably Lord Alfred Douglas, in an era when sex between men was criminalized. In 1895 he was convicted of “gross indecency” and imprisoned, later writing De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He died in exile in Paris.