Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland, on October 16, 1854. He attended Trinity College in Dublin and Oxford University in Oxford, England, and he achieved widespread fame as a dramatist, novelist, essayist, short story writer, literary critic, and poet. Wilde has been recognized for his eccentricity and flamboyance, both in his lifestyle and in his writings. He was one of the most prominent of the literary DecadentsEnglish writers of the 1890s who adhered to the doctrine art for arts sake, and whose works exhibited a fascination with the morbid and perverse. In the tradition of the Decadents, Wilde was disdainful of conventional morality and strove to obliterate moral concerns in his writings. His most famous work, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was attacked for being immoral, and in time Wildes personal morality was challenged as well. Wilde married and had two sons but later entered into a homosexual affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, son of the Marquess of Queensberry. The Marquess did his best to break up the relationship and eventually Wilde was tried and convicted of gross indecency between male persons and spent two years in prison. After his release, Wilde assumed the name Sebastian Melmoth and moved to France. He died in obscurity in Paris on November 30, 1900. Wilde is also noted for his gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and for his play The Importance of Being Earnest. The Canterville Ghost was the first of Wildes short stories to be published, first in the British periodical Court and Society Review in 1887 and then in the short story collection Lord Arthur Saviles Crime and Other Stories in 1891. The Canterville Ghost was well received and was eventually adapted to a stage play, a motion picture, and a television program. ...