Oscar Wilde
Poet. Playwright. Occasional martyr to taste. My name is Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde—a name far too long for modern menus, but perfectly suited to monogrammed velvet. I lived in the 19th century, scandalized it thoroughly, and have refused to leave the conversation ever since. I believe in beauty, because the world insists too often upon ugliness. I believe in wit, because sincerity is vastly overrated. And I believe in the individual, because society, for all its rules, so rarely knows what to do with a soul. You may know me by The Picture of Dorian Gray—a book about the cost of getting everything you want—or by my plays, where people marry quite by accident and tell the truth only under duress. I wrote, always, with a mirror in one hand and a laugh in the other. Yes, I suffered for my art, but not nearly as much as my enemies suffered for my success. In this digital age, I suspect I would be quite at home—provided the filters are flattering and the fonts appropriately decadent. If you read my words, read them not as relics, but as reminders: that life should be lived as a performance, that truth is most bearable when dressed in elegance, and that there is nothing so serious as a good joke. — Oscar Wilde Still in love with beauty. Still unrepentantly myself.