Provocative, but elegant and keen on aesthetics and beauty; sharp, observant – and a hedonist: Oscar Wilde was born in Ireland in 1854, and became a pain in the neck of Victorian England. Wilde was convicted of “gross indecency” (meaning “homosexual activity”) and was sentenced to imprisonment and to hard labor. He is widely known for such works as the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray; the tale The Happy Prince; the play The Importance of Being Earnest; and the letter he has written while in prison, De Profundis (“from the depths”). Wilde died in 1900.