Oscar Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright who wrote several poems, epigrams, plays, and one novel. He was one of London’ s most popular playwrights, having written plays like The Duchess of Padua (1883), Lady Windermere’ s Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), among others. Oscar Wilde’ s reputation, however, rests on his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was heavily criticized for its dark and indecent themes. Popular newspapers labelled it ‘ unclean’ and ‘ poisonous’ while reviewers felt that the text itself was offensive to the reader. But Oscar Wilde fiercely defended his novel in the British press and thus became a spokesperson for the Aesthetic movement in England, which advocated art for art’ s sake.