scar Wilde was known as the father of the aesthetic movement and for works such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest. He was also involved in a celebrity scandal that filled the newspapers of Victorian Britain. Wilde was the author of his own downfall when he launched a criminal libel case against an aristocrat who accused him of committing indecent acts with his son. The tables were turned on Wilde when he found himself under arrest, and he was ruined when he could not clear his name.
1. Oscar Wilde Was On the Prosecution Side In the First Trial
Oscar Wilde’s first trial took place at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales, also known as the Old Bailey, on April 3, 1895. Wilde’s legal troubles began four years earlier when, at the age of 38, he met 22-year-old Lord Alfred Douglas, a student at Oxford. Wilde was by then a well-known literary figure and leader of the aesthetic movement, which believed in “art for art’s sake.” Wilde and Douglas often dined together, stayed in houses and hotels together, and Douglas was the recipient of several gifts from Wilde; Wilde even wrote a sonnet about Douglas.
