Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was an Irish author, poet and playwright. Today he might be best known for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray that portrays a young man who sells his soul to the devil to gain eternal youth. When it was first published in 1980 it was considered immoral and received harsh criticism. But years later it came to be appreciated for the way it criticized the vain and shallow society it describes. Instead, Wilde was most renowned for his playwrights during his lifetime and in the 1980s he was one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London. However, in 1985 Wilde was convicted for gross indecency with men and imprisoned for 2 years which led to cancellations of his plays and rejection of his novels. A few years after he was released from his prison sentence he died, poor and alone, at the Hôtel d'Alsace in Paris. The idea and design behind the bookends is by the Swedish renowned industrial designer Jan Landqvist and the bookends are made in the small town Gnosjö in the south of Sweden. Designer: Landqvist, Jan