Oscar Wilde’s Remarkable Career: Professional Ambitions, Sexual Adventures

This chapter pays close attention to Oscar Wilde's evolving sexual interest in other men during a period when he established himself as a talented literary author with an attractive wife and two young sons. It begins with Wilde's initially happy marriage, which began in May 1884, to the talented Irishwoman Constance Mary Wilde, whom he had met through a friendship between their Dublin families. It also looks closely at Wilde's growing desire to enjoy intimacy with his own sex, which became evident three years into his wedded life. The chapter explores the circumstances that resulted in the severe harassment that Wilde suffered at the hands of John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry. The account that unfolds here leads up to the months preceding the libel suit that Wilde, in unguarded fashion, took out against the belligerent marquess.