Oscar Wilde was born in October 1854 in Dublin. After attending Trinity College in Dublin and Magdalen College in Oxford, Wilde embarked on a career as a poet, quickly establishing himself as a leading figure in the aesthetic movement. He was at the height of his powers when the unwise prosecution for libel of the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, led to imprisonment and social disgrace in 1895. He died in exile in 1900, aged 46.