Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was born in Dublin to unconventional
parents. His mother, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde (1820-96), was a
poet and journalist. Her pen name was Sperenza. According to a
story she warded off creditors by reciting Aeschylus. Wilde's
father was Sir William Wilde, an Irish antiquarian, gifted
writer, and specialist in diseases of the eye and ear, who
founded a hospital in Dublin a year before Oscar was born. His
work gained for him the honorary appointment of Surgeon Oculist
in Ordinary to the Queen. Lady Wilde, who was active in the
women's rights movement, was reputed to ignore her husbands
amorous adventures. Wilde studied at Portora Royal School, in
Enniskillen, County Fermanagh (1864-71), Trinity College, Dublin
(1871-74) and Magdalen College, Oxford (1874-78), where he was
taught by Walter Patewr and John Ruskin. Already at the age of
13, Wilde's tastes in clothes were dandy's. "The flannel shirts
you sent in the hamper are both Willie's mine are one quite
scarlet and the other lilac but