Oscar Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and author of short stories. Known for his barbed wit, he was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. As the result of a famous trial, he suffered a dramatic downfall and was imprisoned for two years of hard labour after being convicted of the offence of "gross indecency".

Oscar Wilde was the second son born into an Anglo-Irish family, at 21 Westland Row, Dublin, to Sir William Wilde and his wife Jane Francesca Elgee. Jane was a successful writer and an Irish nationalist, known also as 'Speranza', while Sir William was Ireland's leading ear and eye surgeon, and wrote books on archaeology and folklore. He was a renowned philanthropist, and his dispensary for the care of the city's poor, in Lincoln Place at the rear of Trinity College, Dublin, was the forerunner of the Dublin Eye and Ear Hospital, now located at Adelaide Road.

In June 1855, the family moved to 1 Merrion Square in a fashionable residential area, where Wilde's sister, Isola, was born in 1856. Here, Lady Wilde held a regular Saturday afternoon salon with guests including Sheridan le Fanu, Samuel Lever, George Petrie, Isaac Butt and Samuel Ferguson. Oscar was educated at home up to the age of nine. He attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Fermanagh from 1864 to 1871, spending the summer months with his family in rural Waterford, Wexford and at Sir William's family home in Mayo. Here the Wilde brothers played with the old George Moore.

After leaving Portora, Wilde studied classics at Trinity College, Dublin, from 1871 to 1874. He was an outstanding student, and won the Berkeley Gold Medal, the highest award available to classics students at Trinity. He was granted a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he continued his studies from 1874 to 1878 and where he became a part of the Aesthetic movement, one of its tenets being to make an art of life. While at Magdalen, he won the 1878 Newdigate Prize for his poem Ravenna, which he read out at Encaenia; he failed, though, to win the Chancellor's English Essay Prize for an essay that would be published posthumously as The Rise of Historical Criticism (1909). In November 1878, he graduated with a double first in classical moderations and literae humaniores, or 'greats'.

Wilde is an iconic figure in modern popular culture, both as a wit and as an archetype of gay identity. Such references to him include a Monty Python skit called "Oscar Wilde and Friends," anachronistic inclusion in Todd Haynes' 1998 film Velvet Goldmine (where Wilde's persona is presented as a precursor to glam rock); Dorian, Will Self's 2004 reworking of Wilde's novel, set in 1981; and Melmoth, Dave Sim's comic book, which retells the story of Wilde's final months with the names and places slightly altered to fit the world of Cerebus the Aardvark.

Many songs have alluded to Wilde or his works, including The Smiths' "Cemetry Gates" and British singer / songwriter James Blunt's "Tears and Rain" (which mentions Dorian Gray). The Libertines sing about how nice it would be to be "Dorian Gray, just for a day" in their song "Narcissist" on their 2004 LP. There is also a mention of Dorian Gray and "A picture in gray..." in the song "The Ocean" by U2 from their debut album Boy. "The Long Voyage" from French producer Hector Zazou's 1994 album Chansons des mers froides, on which Suzanne Vega and John Cale recite lyrics based on Wilde's poem "Silhouettes". "Resist", by Canadian rock group Rush, was inspired by Wilde.^{[citation needed]} Given his brilliance of phrasing, his ability to twist common axioms, and his biographical flourishes, Wilde continues to provide material for venues such as Uncyclopedia, a parody of Wikipedia.

Oscar Wilde's image is currently used as the logo of the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival.