Editing Oscar Wilde (section)

=== London life and marriage ===
[[File:Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) from Vanity Fair Issue 812, April 1884..jpg|thumb|150px|Caricature of Wilde in the London magazine ''[[Vanity Fair (British magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'', 24 April 1884]]
His earnings, plus expected income from ''[[The Duchess of Padua]]'', allowed him to move to Paris between February and mid-May 1883. While there he met [[Robert Sherard]], whom he entertained constantly. "We are dining on the Duchess tonight", Wilde would declare before taking him to an expensive restaurant.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=205}} In August he briefly returned to New York for the production of ''Vera'', the rights of which he had sold to the American actress [[Marie Prescott]]. The play was initially well received by the audience, but when the critics wrote lukewarm reviews, attendance fell sharply and the play closed a week after it had opened.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=228}}
{{multiple image|align=left
 | footer    = Left: No. 34 [[Tite Street]], [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]], the Wilde family home from 1884 to his arrest in 1895. Right: close up of the commemorative [[blue plaque]] on the outer wall. In Wilde's time this was No. 16 – the houses have been renumbered.<ref name="Bristow 2009 xli">{{cite book |last=Bristow |first=Joseph |title=Oscar Wilde and Modern Culture: The Making of a Legend |publisher=Ohio University Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-8214-1837-6 |location=Athens, OH |page=xli |author-link=Joseph Bristow (literary scholar)}}</ref>
 | width     =
 | image1    = Wildehouse.JPG
 | width1    = 116
 | image2    = OSCAR WILDE 1854-1900 wit and dramatist lived here.JPG
 | width2    = 120
}}
In London, he had been introduced in 1881 to [[Constance Lloyd]], daughter of Horace Lloyd, a wealthy [[Queen's Counsel]] (lawyer). She happened to be visiting Dublin in 1884 when Wilde was lecturing at the [[Gaiety Theatre, Dublin|Gaiety Theatre]]. He proposed to her, and they married on 29 May 1884 at the Anglican [[St James's Church, Paddington]], in London.<ref>{{cite web |title=Oscar & Constance Wilde |url=http://www.stjamespaddington.org.uk/history/oscar-constance-wilde.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090108025648/http://www.stjamespaddington.org.uk/history/oscar-constance-wilde.html |archive-date=8 January 2009 |access-date=14 April 2010 |publisher=Saint James, Sussex Gardens, London}}</ref><ref name="Fitzsimons">{{cite book |last=Fitzsimons |first=Eleanor |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ksZTCwAAQBAJ&q=st%20james%20sussex%20gardens%20oscar%20wilde&pg=PT133 |title=Wilde's Women: How Oscar Wilde Was Shaped by the Women He Knew |year= 2017 |publisher=The Overlook Press |isbn=978-1-4683-1326-0 |access-date=25 September 2016 |archive-date=3 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210803095612/https://books.google.com/books?id=ksZTCwAAQBAJ&q=st%20james%20sussex%20gardens%20oscar%20wilde&pg=PT133 |url-status=live}}</ref> Although Constance had an annual allowance of £250, which was generous for a young woman ({{Inflation|UK|250|1884|r=-2|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}), the Wildes had relatively luxurious tastes. They had preached to others for so long on the subject of design that people expected their home to set new standards.{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} 

No 16 [[Tite Street]] in [[Chelsea, London|Chelsea]], west London was duly renovated in seven months at considerable expense. The couple had two sons, [[Cyril Holland|Cyril]] (1885) and [[Vyvyan Holland|Vyvyan]] (1886). Wilde became the sole literary signatory of [[George Bernard Shaw]]'s petition for a pardon of the anarchists arrested (and later executed) after the [[Haymarket affair|Haymarket massacre]] in Chicago in 1886.{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=273}}

[[File:Robert Ross at 24.jpg|thumb|alt=A small head-portrait of a young, pale man with dark hair.|Robert Ross at twenty-four|right]] In 1886, while at Oxford, Wilde met [[Robbie Ross|Robert Ross]]. Ross, who had read Wilde's poems before they met, seemed unrestrained by the Victorian prohibition against homosexuality. By [[Richard Ellmann]]'s account, he was a precocious seventeen-year-old who "so young and yet so knowing, was determined to seduce Wilde".{{sfn|Ellmann|1988|p=275}} According to [[Daniel Mendelsohn]], Wilde, who had long alluded to [[Greek love]], was "initiated into homosexual sex" by Ross, while his "marriage had begun to unravel after his wife's second pregnancy, which left him physically repelled".<ref>{{cite book |last=Mendelsohn |first=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Mendelsohn |title=How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken: Essays By Daniel Mendelsohn |chapter=The two Oscar Wildes |url=https://archive.org/details/howbeautifulitis00mend_132 |url-access=limited |publisher=HarperCollins |location=New York |year=2008 |page=[https://archive.org/details/howbeautifulitis00mend_132/page/n231 218] |isbn=978-0-06-145644-2}}</ref>

Wilde had a number of favourite haunts in London. These included the [[Café Royal]] in Piccadilly, [[Hatchards]] bookstore in Piccadilly,<ref>{{cite book |last=Clayton |first=Antony |title=Decadent London: Fin de Siècle City |publisher=Historical Publications |date=2005 |page=54}}</ref> and the department stores [[Liberty (department store)|Liberty & Co.]] on Great Marlborough Street and [[Harrods]] in Knightsbridge; Wilde was among Harrods' first selected customers who were granted extended credit.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pottinger |first=George |title=The Winning Counter: Hugh Fraser and Harrods |publisher=Hutchinson |date=1971 |page=80}}</ref>