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The ongoing interest in Oscar Wilde as a 19th century dramatist, author and poet is greatly overshadowed by the continuing fascination with his life and personality. The plethora of interest seems to be based on the desire to understand the enigma of his personality: to explain how a man with so much ability and talent, who had achieved fame and was at the very pinnacle of success, should within a few months have become involved in a series of events that resulted in his being plunged into the abyss of total ruin.
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland on October 16, 1854. His father, William Robert Wills Wilde, born 39 years before, was a prominent surgeon and had his own clinic and hospital. His book, Aural Surgery, published in 1853, was a standard textbook on the subject for many years. Dr. Wilde also achieved fame as an archeologist and as the author of many works on Irish folklore, legend and tradition. In addition, he single-handedly catalogued the immense collection of antiquities in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy and worked on the Irish Census. For his many diverse, public-spirited labors, Wilde was knighted in 1864.
Sir William's numerous extramarital affairs were widely known and discussed. Although he is credited with having a number of illegitimate children, the ones specifically mentioned in the various biographies are his natural son, Henry Wilson, and his two daughters, Emily and Mary, who took their father's surname. Henry Wilson became a Dublin surgeon and oculist and worked in his father's hospital. The two girls perished in their twenties when their crinoline dresses caught fire at a ball. Sir William's affair with Mary Travers resulted in a scandalous trial in 1864. He gradually lost interest in his profession and died in 1876.