CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction iii

    I. Oscar’s Father and Mother on Trial 1

   II.  Oscar Wilde as a Schoolboy 23

  III.  Trinity, Dublin:  Magdalen, Oxford 37

   IV.  Formative Influences:  Oscar’s Poems 50

    V. Oscar’s Quarrel with Whistler and Marriage 73

   VI.  Oscar Wilde’s Faith and Practice 91

  VII.  Oscar’s Reputation and Supporters 102

 VIII.  Oscar’s Growth to Originality About 1890 112

   IX.  The Summer of Success:  Oscar’s First Play 133

    X. The First Meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas 144

   XI.  The Threatening Cloud Draws Nearer 156

  XII.  Danger Signals:  the Challenge 175

 XIII.  Oscar Attacks Queensberry and is Worsted 202

  XIV.  How Genius is Persecuted in England 229

   XV.  The Queen vs. Wilde:  The First Trial 261

  XVI.  Escape Rejected:  The Second Trial and Sentence 292

VOLUME II

[Transcriber’s Note:  Volume II is also available on Project Gutenberg.]

 XVII.  Prison and the Effects of Punishment 321

XVIII.  Mitigation of Punishment; but not Release 345

  XIX.  His St. Martin’s Summer:  His Best Work 363

   XX.  The Results of His Second Fall:  His Genius 406

  XXI.  His Sense of Rivalry; His Love of Life and Laziness 433

 XXII.  “A Great Romantic Passion!” 450

XXIII.  His Judgments of Writers and of Women 469

 XXIV.  We Argue About His “Pet Vice” and Punishment 488

  XXV.  The Last Hope Lost 509

 XXVI.  The End 532

XXVII.  A Last Word 542

       Shaw’s “Memories” 1-32

THE APPENDIX, 549

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I

Oscar Wilde at About Thirty Frontispiece

Facingpage
Dr. Sir William Wilde 22

Oscar Wilde at Twenty-Seven, as He First Appeared in America 75