Dec 23, 2009

An Ideal Husband | Topics for Further Study

• Research the circumstances surrounding Oscar Wilde’s trial and imprisonment.

• The two years Wilde spent in prison ruined his health. Late-nineteenth-century prison conditions were harsh and hard labor as a punishment was common. Research prisons and the treatment of prisoners in England from 1890, plotting the major prison reforms of the twentieth century.

• Research Wilde’s mother, Lady Jane Francesca Wilde, née Elgee. What works of literature did she publish under her own name? What did she publish under the pen name ‘‘Speranza,’’ and what was her...