Oscar & Constance Wilde
One hundred and twenty five years ago - here at St James’s - the wedding took place of Constance Mary Lloyd, the daughter of a well-know Irish barrister, and Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde. Mary Lloyd lived around the corner in Lancaster Gate with her paternal grandfather, and that is where the wedding reception was held on 29 May, 1884.
Oscar Wilde was already known as an Aesthete and Wit on both sides of the Atlantic, having delivered a series of lectures in the United States in 1882. He visited about seventy towns and later said of the miners of the Rocky Mountains town of Leadville, Colorado: “The only well-dressed men I have seen in America.” (They wore mainly red shirts, corduroy trousers and high boots.)
Mr and Mrs Wilde spent their honeymoon in Paris, and it was at their hotel that Wilde’s earliest biographer, Robert Sherard, first met Constance. “The lovely young wife seemed supremely happy. ... And as I walked out with Oscar, he told me that marriage was indeed wonderful.”
St James’s is working towards creating a substantial and permanent memorial to Oscar & Constance within the building. The OSCANCE Fund has been set up to realise this.
Please look at the OSCANCE section of our web site for further details of our annual special event.
Some links to other sites about Oscar Wilde:
- Oscar Wilde
- Constance Wilde
Literary Works
1887- 89 edited "Woman's World"
1888 published "The Happy Prince and Other Tales", fairy-stories written for his two sons.
(1892) "Lady Windermere's Fan"
(1895) "The Importance of Being Earnest"
(1895) "An Ideal Husband"
(1897 approx) "The Ballad of Reading Gaol
(1889) "The Decay of Lying"
(1890) "The Critic as Artist"
(1891) "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
(1905) "De Profundis"
From mid-1880s he was a regular contributor for Pall Mall Gazette and Dramatic View
Short Stories
The Devoted Friend
The Happy Prince
The Nightingale and the Rose
The Remarkable Rocket
The Selfish Giant
Poetry
Apologia
Madonna Mia
On the Massacre of Christians in Bulgaria
The Grave of Shelley
