Editing Oscar Wilde (section)

== Theatrical career: 1892–1895 ==

=== ''Salomé'' ===
{{main|Salome (play)|l1=''Salome'' (play)}}
[[File:John+Salome.jpg|thumb|upright|A stylistically androgynous Jokanaan, with Salome. Illustration by [[Aubrey Beardsley]] for the 1894 English edition of ''Salome'']]
The [[1891 United Kingdom census|1891 census]] records the Wildes' residence at 16 [[Tite Street]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Registrar General Records |url=http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Wilde%2C_Oscar_O%27Flahertie_Wills_%281856-1900%29%2C_author |access-date=12 March 2010 |website=Wilde, Oscar O'Flahertie Wills (1856–1900), author |publisher=[[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|National Archives]] |archive-date=2 October 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091002221346/http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Wilde%2C_Oscar_O%27Flahertie_Wills_%281856-1900%29%2C_author |url-status=live}}</ref> where Oscar lived with his wife Constance and two sons. Not content with being better known than ever in London, though, he returned to Paris in October 1891, this time as a respected writer. He was received at the ''[[salon (gathering)|salons]] littéraires'', including the famous ''mardis'' of [[Stéphane Mallarmé]], a renowned [[symbolism (arts)|symbolist]] poet of the time.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=316}} Wilde's two plays during the 1880s, ''[[Vera; or, The Nihilists]]'' and ''[[The Duchess of Padua]]'', had not met with much success. He had continued his interest in the theatre and now, after finding his voice in prose, his thoughts turned again to the dramatic form as the biblical iconography of [[Salome]] filled his mind.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=322}} One evening, after discussing depictions of Salome throughout history, he returned to his hotel and noticed a blank copybook lying on the desk, and it occurred to him to write in it what he had been saying. The result was a new play, ''[[Salome (play)|Salomé]]'', written rapidly and in French.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=323}}

A tragedy, it tells the story of Salome, the stepdaughter of the [[Tetrarchy (Judea)|tetrarch]] [[Herod Antipas]], who, to her stepfather's dismay but [[Herodias|mother]]'s delight, requests the head of Jokanaan ([[John the Baptist]]) on a silver platter as a reward for dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils. When Wilde returned to London just before Christmas the ''Paris Echo'' referred to him as ''"le great event"'' of the season.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=326}} Rehearsals of the play, starring [[Sarah Bernhardt]], began but the play was refused a licence by the Lord Chamberlain since it depicted biblical characters.{{sfn|Mason|1972|p=371}} ''Salome'' was published jointly in Paris and London in 1893 in the original French, and in London a year later in Lord Alfred Douglas's English translation with illustrations by [[Aubrey Beardsley]], though it was not performed until 1896 in Paris, during Wilde's incarceration.{{sfn|Mason|1972|pp=370, 379}}

=== Comedies of society ===
{{main|Lady Windermere's Fan|l1=''Lady Windermere's Fan''|A Woman of No Importance|l2=''A Woman of No Importance''|An Ideal Husband|l3=''An Ideal Husband''}}
[[File:Windermere Lake District from hill.JPG|thumb|right|upright=1.1|Lake [[Windermere]] in northern England where Wilde began working on his first hit play, ''[[Lady Windermere's Fan]]'' (1892), during a summer visit in 1891<ref>{{cite news |title=An introduction to Lady Windermere's Fan |agency=British Library |url=https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/an-introduction-to-lady-windermeres-fan |access-date=23 August 2020 |archive-date=27 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201027163807/https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/an-introduction-to-lady-windermeres-fan |url-status=live}}</ref>]]
Wilde, who had first set out to irritate Victorian society with his dress and talking points, then to outrage it with ''Dorian Gray'', his novel of vice hidden beneath art, finally found a way to critique society on its own terms. ''Lady Windermere's Fan'' was first performed on 20 February 1892 at St James's Theatre, packed with the cream of society. On the surface a witty comedy, there is subtle subversion underneath: "it concludes with collusive concealment rather than collective disclosure".{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=344}} The audience, like Lady Windermere, are forced to soften harsh social codes in favour of a more nuanced view. The play was enormously popular, touring the country for months, but largely trashed by conservative critics.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=347}} The success of the play saw Wilde earn £7,000 in the first year alone ({{Inflation|UK|7000|1892|r=-2|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}).{{Inflation-fn|UK}}{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=315}}

His first hit play was followed by ''A Woman of No Importance'' in 1893, another Victorian comedy, revolving around the spectre of illegitimate births, mistaken identities and late revelations.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=360}} Wilde was commissioned to write two more plays and ''An Ideal Husband'', written in 1894,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wilde |first=Oscar |title=An ideal husband. Act III: London: typescript with extensive autograph revisions, 1894 |oclc=270589204}}</ref> followed in January 1895.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=404}}

Peter Raby said these essentially English plays were well-pitched: "Wilde, with one eye on the dramatic genius of Ibsen, and the other on the commercial competition in London's [[West End theatre|West End]], targeted his audience with adroit precision".{{sfn|Raby|1997|p=146}}

=== Queensberry family ===
[[File:Wilde Douglas British Library B20147-85.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Wilde and [[Lord Alfred Douglas]] in 1893]]
In mid-1891, [[Lionel Johnson]] introduced Wilde to [[Lord Alfred Douglas]], Johnson's friend, who was at the time an undergraduate at Oxford.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Riley |first1=Kathleen |last2=Blanshard |first2=Alastair |last3=Manny |first3=Iarla |title=Oscar Wilde and classical antiquity |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |edition=first |year=2018 |oclc=986815031 |isbn=978-0-19-878926-0}}</ref> Known to his family and friends as "Bosie", he was a handsome and spoilt young man. An intimate friendship sprang up between Wilde and Douglas and by 1893 Wilde was infatuated with Douglas and they consorted together regularly in a tempestuous affair. If Wilde was relatively indiscreet, even flamboyant, in the way he acted, Douglas was reckless in public. Wilde, who was earning up to £100 a week from his plays (his salary at ''The Woman's World'' had been £6), indulged Douglas's every whim: material, artistic, or sexual.

Douglas soon initiated Wilde into the Victorian underground of gay prostitution, and Wilde was introduced to a series of young working-class male prostitutes ([[rent boys]]) from 1892 onwards by Alfred Taylor. These infrequent rendezvous usually took the same form: Wilde would meet the boy, offer him gifts, dine him privately and then take him to a hotel room. Unlike Wilde's idealised relations with Ross, [[John Gray (poet)|John Gray]], and Douglas, all of whom remained part of his aesthetic circle, these consorts were uneducated and knew nothing of literature. Soon his public and private lives had become sharply divided; in ''[[De Profundis (letter)|De Profundis]]'' he wrote to Douglas that "It was like feasting with panthers; the danger was half the excitement... I did not know that when they were to strike at me it was to be at another's piping and at another's pay."{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p={{page needed|date=May 2021}}}}

Douglas and some Oxford friends founded a journal, ''[[The Chameleon (magazine)|The Chameleon]]'', to which Wilde "sent a page of paradoxes originally destined for the [[Saturday Review (London newspaper)|''Saturday Review'']]".{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=702}} "[[s:Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young|Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young]]" was to come under attack six months later at Wilde's trial, where he was forced to defend the magazine to which he had sent his work.{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|p=703}} In any case, it became unique: ''The Chameleon'' was not published again.

Lord Alfred's father, the [[John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry|Marquess of Queensberry]], was known for his outspoken atheism, brutish manner and creation of the [[Marquess of Queensberry Rules|modern rules of boxing]].{{efn|Queensberry's oldest son, [[Francis Douglas, Viscount Drumlanrig]], possibly had an intimate association with [[Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery]], the Prime Minister to whom he was private secretary, which ended with Drumlanrig's death in an unexplained shooting accident. In any case the Marquess of Queensberry came to believe his sons had been corrupted by older homosexuals or, as he phrased it in a letter in the aftermath of Drumlanrig's death: "Montgomerys, The Snob Queers like Rosebery and certainly Christian Hypocrite like Gladstone and the whole lot of you".{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=402}}}} Queensberry, who feuded regularly with his son, confronted Wilde and Lord Alfred about the nature of their relationship several times, but Wilde was able to mollify him. In June 1894, he called on Wilde at 16 Tite Street, without an appointment, and clarified his stance: "I do not say that you are it, but you look it, and pose at it, which is just as bad. And if I catch you and my son again in any public restaurant I will thrash you" to which Wilde responded: "I don't know what the Queensberry rules are, but the Oscar Wilde rule is to shoot on sight".{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=421}} His account in ''De Profundis'' was less triumphant: "It was when, in my library at Tite Street, waving his small hands in the air in epileptic fury, your father... stood uttering every foul word his foul mind could think of, and screaming the loathsome threats he afterwards with such cunning carried out".{{sfn|Holland|Hart-Davis|2000|pp=699–700}}{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=396}} Queensberry only described the scene once, saying Wilde had "shown him the [[white feather]]", meaning he had acted in a cowardly way.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=396}} Though trying to remain calm, Wilde saw that he was becoming ensnared in a brutal family quarrel. He did not wish to bear Queensberry's insults, but he knew that confronting him could lead to disaster were his liaisons disclosed publicly.

=== ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' ===
{{main|The Importance of Being Earnest|l1=''The Importance of Being Earnest''}}
[[File:The Importance of being Earnest, an early handwritten draft, by Oscar Wilde, 1894 - British Library, London - DSC00530.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.9|Handwritten draft of ''The Importance of Being Earnest'', on display in the British Library]]
Wilde's final play again returns to the theme of switched identities: the play's two protagonists engage in "bunburying" (the maintenance of alternative personas in the town and country) which allows them to escape Victorian social mores.<ref name="Mendelsohn">{{cite magazine |last=Mendelsohn |first=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Mendelsohn |date=10 October 2002 |title=The Two Oscar Wildes |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2002/10/10/the-two-oscar-wildes/ |magazine=[[New York Review of Books]] |volume=49 |access-date=1 April 2020 |number=15 |url-access=limited |archive-date=6 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806024640/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2002/10/10/the-two-oscar-wildes/ |url-status=live}}</ref> ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' is even lighter in tone than Wilde's earlier comedies. While their characters often rise to serious themes in moments of crisis, ''Earnest'' lacks the by-now-stock Wildean characters: there is no "woman with a past", the principals are neither villainous nor cunning, simply idle {{lang|fr|cultivés}}, and the idealistic young women are not that innocent. Mostly set in drawing rooms and almost completely lacking in action or violence, ''Earnest'' lacks the self-conscious decadence found in ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'' and ''[[Salome (play)|Salome]]''.{{sfn|Raby|1997|pp=166–167}}

[[File:St-James's-Theatre-London.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|alt=tinted postcard showing exterior of neo-classical building|[[St James's Theatre]], London in the 1890s. ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' was Wilde's fourth West End hit in three years.<ref>{{cite news |title='The Importance of Being Earnest': The first stage production, 1895 |agency=Victoria and Albert Museum |url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-importance-of-being-earnest-first-stage-production/ |access-date=20 July 2021 |archive-date=8 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210608185307/http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-importance-of-being-earnest-first-stage-production/ |url-status=live}}</ref>]]

The play, now considered Wilde's [[masterpiece]], was rapidly written in Wilde's artistic maturity in late 1894.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=398}} It was first performed on 14 February 1895, at [[St James's Theatre]] in London, Wilde's second collaboration with [[George Alexander (actor)|George Alexander]], the actor-manager. Both author and producer assiduously revised, prepared and rehearsed every line, scene and setting in the months before the premiere, creating a carefully constructed representation of late-Victorian society, yet simultaneously mocking it.{{sfn|Raby|1997|p=161}} During rehearsal Alexander requested that Wilde shorten the play from four acts to three, which the author did. Premieres at St James's seemed like "brilliant parties", and the opening of ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' was no exception. [[Allan Aynesworth]] (who played Algernon) recalled to [[Hesketh Pearson]], "In my fifty-three years of acting, I never remember a greater triumph than [that] first night."<ref>{{cite book |last=Pearson |first=Hesketh |title=Oscar Wilde: His Life and Wit |year=1946 |page=257}}</ref> ''Earnest''{{'}}s immediate reception as Wilde's best work to date finally crystallised his fame into a solid artistic reputation.<ref name="wheatcroft">{{cite magazine |last=Wheatcroft |first=Geoffrey |author-link=Geoffrey Wheatcroft |date=May 2003 |title=Not Green, Not Red, Not Pink |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2003/05/wheatcroft.htm |magazine=The Atlantic Monthly |access-date=10 March 2017 |archive-date=22 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130522160423/http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2003/05/wheatcroft.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> In a review of the play for ''[[The Pall Mall Gazette]]'' [[H. G. Wells]] wrote, "More humorous dealing with theatrical conventions it would be difficult to imagine. Mr Oscar Wilde has decorated a humour that is [[W. S. Gilbert|Gilbertian]] with innumerable spangles of that wit that is all his own".{{sfn|Beckson|2003|p=213}} ''The Importance of Being Earnest'' remains his most popular play.{{sfn|Raby|1997|p=165}}

Wilde's professional success was mirrored by an escalation in his feud with Queensberry. Queensberry had planned to insult Wilde publicly by throwing a bouquet of rotting vegetables onto the stage; Wilde was tipped off and had Queensberry barred from entering the theatre.{{sfn|Morley|1976|p=102}} Fifteen weeks later Wilde was in prison.