Oscar Wilde

His full name was Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, but the world knew him as Oscar Wilde.

When he was in Richmond he pulled a prank on townsfolk.

Oscar Wilde, author, playwright and wit, preached the importance of style in art and life, and attacked Victorian narrow-mindedness in the latter part of the 19th Century.

With books such as 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', he showed the destructive side of a life devoted to pleasure and beauty, and educated unrealistic idealists on their weaknesses, revealing the need for tolerance and forgiveness.

He claimed, “It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”

He combined both high comedy with farce and targeted the shallowness of British snobbery focused on good breeding and proper formalities.

His reportedly famous last words were, “Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.”

When he passed through Richmond by train in late May of 1882, The Evening Item reported that a large number of curiosity seekers were favored with his autograph.

Wilde later wrote the editor to say that he had not shown himself and that his valet had written the autographs.


 

 


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June 19, 2012