APC The Canterville Ghost for Class 11

Oscar Wilde was born on 16 October, 1854 at 21 Westland Row, Dublin. He was born to Sir William Wilde and Jane Francesca. His parents were successful Dublin intellectuals. Until he was nine, Oscar Wilde was educated at home. A French borne and a German governess taught him their languages at home. He then attended Portora Royal School in, County Fermanagh. He left Portora with a royal scholarship to read classics at Trinity College, Dublin. He also studied at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was a playwright, novelist, essayist, poet and epigrammatist. A brilliant classicist, he won the Newdigate Prize in 1878 for his poem, “Ravenna’. He made himself conspicuous by despising aestheticism and espousing the Aesthetic Movement. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities. He published a book of poems, lectured in the United States of America and Canada on the new “English Renaissance in Art”. Then he returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Wilde was popularly known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversation.
The Importance of Being Earnest, his masterpiece, was published in 1895. He was convicted and imprisoned for two years’ hard labour. In prison, he wrote De Profundis. In this long letter he discussed his spiritual journey through his trials. He went to France when he was released from jail. He never returned to Ireland or Britain. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), along poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty six on 30 November 1900.