20 Facts About Willie Wilde

William Charles Kingsbury Wilde was an Irish journalist and poet of the Victorian era.

Jane Willie Wilde was a successful writer, being a poet for the revolutionary Young Irelanders in 1848 and a lifelong Irish nationalist.

Willie Wilde was a renowned philanthropist, and his dispensary for the care of the city's poor, in Lincoln Place at the rear of Trinity College, Dublin, was the forerunner of the Dublin Eye and Ear Hospital, now located at Adelaide Road.

In June 1855, the family moved to 1 Merrion Square in a fashionable residential area, where Willie Wilde's sister, Isola, was born in 1856.

Willie Wilde was already a student at Trinity College, Dublin when Oscar joined him in 1871, the two sharing rooms during their second and third years there.

In 1876 'Willie Wilde' published several of his poems in the College magazine Kottabos, which he edited.

Willie Wilde was a regular guest at the Fielding Club, which during its short life opened its doors at eight o'clock in the evening and remained open all night.

On 4 October 1891, aged 39, Willie Wilde married a wealthy widow, Mrs Frank Leslie, the owner of the Frank Leslie Publishing Company in New York.

Willie Wilde was initially attracted by Willie's humour and wit.

Willie Wilde proceeded to spend much of his time in New York drinking at the fashionable Lotos Club, gossiping about London Society and reciting parodies of his brother's poems, which perhaps suggests that he was jealous of Oscar's success.

Willie Wilde's marriage was short-lived, Mrs Leslie starting divorce proceedings within a year on the grounds of Willie's drunkenness and adultery.

On his return to London, early in 1892, Willie Wilde found that Oscar was the toast of the town for his successful play Lady Windermere's Fan.

Willie Wilde knew in advance it was the sort of thing my mother would adore.

In January 1894 Willie Wilde married Sophie Lily Lees, with whom he had been living.

Willie Wilde can give nothing to the house and Willie is always in a state of utter poverty.

Lady Wilde wrote Oscar a lengthy letter seeking reconciliation between him and Willie, who, she said, was "sickly and extravagant".

Willie Wilde added that she was "miserable at the present position of [her] two sons" and "at the general belief that you hate your brother".

Willie Wilde said that Oscar "fell down on my threshold like a wounded stag".

On 13 March 1899 Willie Wilde died, aged 46, at 9 Cheltenham Terrace in Chelsea from complications related to his alcoholism.

Willie Wilde's second husband, who became Dolly's stepfather, was the Dutch-born translator Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.