John Wycliffe

EARLY LIFE 

John Wycliffe was born in the village of Hipswell near Richmond in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England in around 1320.

Fictional portrait of John Wycliffe, c. 1828

All we know about John Wycliffe's parents is that they were of early Saxon origin, long settled in Yorkshire. They held property principally centred on Wycliffe-on-Tees, about ten miles to the north of Richmond. Hipswell, his birthplace, was an outlying hamlet.

Young John was probably educated initially by his village priest. The Yorkshireman left for Balliol College, Oxford University in around 1345 at a time when a series of illustrious names was adding glory to the fame of the university-such as those of Roger Bacon, Thomas Bradwardine, William of Occam, and Richard Fitzralph.

John Wycliffe owed much to William of Occam's work and thought; he showed an interest in natural science and mathematics, but applied himself to the study of theology, ecclesiastical law, and philosophy. Even his opponents acknowledged the keenness of his dialectic. His writings prove that he was well grounded in Roman and English law, as well as in native history.

The student Wycliffe probably lost many of his university chums through the Black Death epidemic, which ranged between 1349 and 1353.

EARLY CAREER 

Wycliffe's university career followed the usual course. While as baccalaureate he busied himself with natural science and mathematics. He attained the headship no later than 1360; as master he had the right to read in philosophy. More significant was Wycliffe's interest in Bible study, which he pursued after becoming bachelor in theology.

Wycliffe taught Philosophy at Oxford for most of his career while nominally serving as a Priest in a succession of parishes.

John Wycliffe portrayed in Bale's Scriptor Majoris Britanniæ 1548.

When John Wycliffe was presented by the college in 1361 with the parish of Fylingham in Lincolnshire, he had to give up the leadership of Balliol, though he could continue to live at Oxford; he is said to have had rooms in the buildings of Queen's.

In 1368 Wycliffe gave up his living at Fylingham and took over the rectory of Ludgershall in Buckinghamshire, not far from Oxford, which enabled him to retain his connection with the university.

Wycliffe obtained a bachelor's degree in theology in 1369, and his doctorate three years later. As such such he made use of his right to lecture upon systematic divinity. By now Wycliffe was recognized as the leading theologian and philosopher of his age.

Wycliffe received the crown living of Lutterworth in Leicestershire in 1374, which he retained till his death.

King Edward III of England appointed Wycliffe to a commission in 1375 studying differences between the Crown and Papacy. He was sent to Bruges to discuss with the representatives of Gregory XI a number of points in dispute between the king and the pope.

BELIEFS

John Wycliffe challenged penances, indulgences, absolutions, pilgrimages, the worship of images, the use of Holy Water, the adoration of the saints and the distinction between pardonable and mortal sins. He used Scripture as the standard of judging and promoted preaching as being "of more value than the administration of any Sacrament." He said the Bible contains all that is necessary for salvation and emphasised the individual's direct relationship with God through Christ.

Wycliffe's political ideas were summarised by the phrase "dominion is founded in grace" which was an attack on unjust monarchs, emperors, popes, and bishops who claimed their people must obey them as obedience is God's will.

LATER CAREER

John Wycliffe denounced the worldliness and luxury of the papacy. "Christ is Truth" he wrote, "the pope is the principal of falsehood." He concluded that Christ, not the pope, is the head of the church, which annoyed the Catholic hierarchy.

In 1378 he was summoned before the Bishop of London and Wycliffe stubbornly refused to compromise his beliefs. Only a last minute letter from the Queen Mother, Joan of Kent prevented Wycliffe from being pronounced a heretic and he was freed to continue his writing.

In 1381 Wycliffe provoked his greatest reaction yet, with his attack on transubstantiation. He published twelve arguments against the idea that bread and wine of Holy Communion are transformed into the actual physical body and blood of Christ.

John Wycliffe at work in his study

William Courtney, Archbishop of Canterbury, called a council in 1382 in order to condemn the opinions of Wycliffe and his adherents. During the sittings held in the Dominican monastery at Blackfriars, London, a great earthquake shook the city, which caused many to wish to break up the assembly. However William Courtney persuaded them to continue and Wycliffe and his followers were denounced as heretics.

Later Wycliffe was summoned before the synod at Oxford. The interrogation ended when his patron, the king's uncle John of Gaunt who had accompanied Wycliffe, became involved in a brawl with the Bishop of London. Wycliffe was neither excommunicated nor deprived of his living. However, he was expelled from Oxford and forced to retire to his parish at Lutterworth.

ENGLISH BIBLE AND OTHER WRITINGS

"The Morning Star of the Reformation", as John Wycliffe was later nicknamed, found that the continuing restrictions he was placed under freed him to spend much of his later years translating the Bible into vernacular English from Latin.

John's Gospel in Wycliffe's Bible

Wycliffe's Bible appears to have been completed by 1384, additional updated versions being done by Wycliffe's assistant John Purvey and others in 1388 and 1395.

John Wycliffe's English translation of the Bible had to be written out laboriously by hand and it took a copyist nine months to produce one copy at a cost of £40.

Wycliffe's followers were known as the Poor Priests or Lollards (mumblers, so called as they mumble the Bible as they read it). They were sent out to win souls without a purse or staff in their hand and were dependent on food from neighbors. All they carried were a few pages of Wycliffe's Bible and his tracts and sermons.

William Frederick Yeames, Wyclif Giving "The Poor Priests" His Translation of the Bible

The Lollards were clad in russet robes of undressed wool, and went about barefoot.

Wycliffe was fond of cricket metaphors. The original bat was a primitive club, used for attack and defence. In an early translation of the Bible, Wycliffe equipped a crowd of men with "swerdies and battis" while smugglers in southern England who moved about armed with cudgels were referred to as "the Sussex batsmen". When in 1545 Wycliffe's tract on Transubstantiation was published, it was referred to as "Wycliffe's Wicket," presenting "a narrow opening to Salvation."

PERSONAL LIFE 

According to The Testimony of William Thorpe (1407), it appears that Wycliffe was spare of body, indeed of wasted appearance, and not strong physically.

Doctor Evangelicus, as Wycliffe was nicknamed, was fearless and stubborn.  According to William Thorpe, he was of unblemished walk in life, and was regarded affectionately by people of rank, who often consorted with him, took down his sayings, and clung to him. But when he turned upon them his roughest side, as for example in his sermons, polemical writings and tracts, Wycliffe met the attacks with a tone that could not be styled friendly.

LATER LIFE, DEATH AND LEGACY 

While Wycliffe was hearing the Mass in the Lutterworth parish church on Holy Innocents' Day, December 28, 1384, he was paralysed by a stroke. Wycliffe died on December 31, 1384 aged around 64.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Arundel, did not give Wycliffe a favorable eulogy alleging: "that pestilent and most wretched John Wycliffe of darnable memory, a child of the old devil and himself a child or pupil of Antichrist who while he lived, walking in the vanity of his mind-with a few other adjectives, adverbs and verbs which I shall not give-crowned his wickedness by translating the scriptures into the mother tongue."

The Council of Constance convened by John XXIII declared Wycliffe a heretic on May 4, 1415. They banned his writings, effectively both excommunicating him retroactively and making him an early forerunner of Protestantism.

The Council also decreed that Wycliffe's bones be dug up and burnt. This order, confirmed by Pope Martin V, was carried out in 1428.

Burning Wycliffe's bones, from Foxe's Book of Martyrs (1563)

Wycliffe is considered to be the first great English Christian reformer and was a great influence on those from other countries such the Czech reformer Jan Hus. His translation of the Bible into English made him the father of the English prose.

The most famous phrase in Abraham Lincoln's Gettyburg's Address – "government of the people, by the people, for the people" – were likely pinched from the prologue to Wycliffe's Bible.

A mission's agency bearing his name (Wycliffe Bible Translators) was founded in 1934 by American translator Cameron Townsend. They continue to translate the scriptures into languages around the world.

Writer

The Puritan poetess Anne Bradstreet (March 20, 1612 – September 16, 1672) was the first American female writer. Her first volume of poetry The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America was published in 1650. It was widely read in America and England.

Nineteenth century depiction of Anne Bradstreet. 

Aphra Behn (1640 - April 16, 1689) was the first woman in England to be a professional writer. In 1668 Mrs Behn was recruited by King Charles II to be a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London she spent some time in debtors' prison, before taking up writing. Her output included 17 plays and, several novels and poems.

Behn's best known work was Oroonoko, her 1688 novel about the sufferings of an African prince and his loved one, who were transported by the English to slavery in Suriname. The work provoked the first sharp prick to the British public's conscience about the horrors of the slave trade.

Born in a remote country town, Hannah Adams (October 2, 1755 – December 15, 1831) lived at a time when a learned woman in New England was a rarity. Though frequently in frail health often poor and obliged to resort to various occupations for her sustenance, Adams doggedly pursued her studies. One day she was encouraged by a boarder in her family home to research comparative religions. The results of her research An Alphabetical Compendium of the Various Sects was published in 1784. It was well received and the emolument she derived from this enabled Adams to become the first American woman to support herself by writing.

Portrait of Hannah Adams by Francis Alexander, c. 1828

Mark Twain wrote in his billiard room so that he could distract himself when stuck.

Marcel Proust and Truman Capote favored writing horizontally.

Texas-born Robert Fulghum became in 1989 the first author in history to have both the #1 and #2 books on the New York Times best-seller list: It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It and All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

Source Chronicle of The World

P. G. Wodehouse

He was born Pelham Grenville Wodehouse on October 15, 1881 in Guildford, Surrey in South East England.

Wodehouse in 1930, aged 48

Pelham was the third son of Henry Ernest Wodehouse, a magistrate resident in the British colony of Hong Kong, and his wife, Eleanor, daughter of the Rev John Bathurst Deane.

The Wodehouses traced their ancestry back to the Boleyn family.

P. G. Wodehouse was one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His novels and short stories feature elaborate plots and a unique writing style based on a combination of very formal language, references to classical literature, and contemporary club-room slang.

His first novel was a school story called The Pothunters, serialised incomplete in Public School Magazine in early 1902, and issued in full in hardback on September 18, 1902.

First edition Wikipedia

After starting out with school stories, Wodehouse later switched to comic fiction, creating several regular comic characters who became familiar to the public, most famously the jolly gentleman of leisure Bertie Wooster and his invaluable and impeccable man-servant, Jeeves.

Percy Jeeves, a popular Warwickshire fast bowler, was the inspiration for Wodehouse's man-servant. The author witnessed the cricketer bowling at Cheltenham Cricket Festival in 1913. Jeeves died in the Battle of Somme during World War I, less than a year after the first appearance of the Wodehouse  character who would make his name a household word.

The fictional character Aunt Agatha in the Jeeves novels was based on Wodehouse's own aunt, Mary Bathurst Deane.

Other comic characters created by Wodehouse include the immaculate and loquacious Psmith; Lord Emsworth of Blandings Castle with his pig, the Empress of Blandings; the disaster-prone opportunist Ukridge; the Oldest Member, with stories about golf; and Mr Mulliner, with tales on numerous subjects from film studios to the Church of England.

Wodehouse reached the peak of his productivity in the 1930s, averaging two books each year, and grossing an annual £100,000.

Kaiser Wilhelm II read P.G. Wodehouse aloud to his entourage, glaring at them when they failed to laugh.

In the mid 1900s, the young American composer Jerome Kern was writing for shows at London's Aldwych Theatre. In early 1906 the Aldwych Theatre actor-manager Seymour Hicks invited Wodehouse to join Kern and add topical verses to the shows running there.

Wodehouse aged 23

The first Kern-Wodehouse collaboration, a comic number for The Beauty of Bath titled "Mr [Joseph] Chamberlain", was a show-stopper and was briefly the most popular song in London.

Towards the end of 1915 Jerome Kern introduced Wodehouse to the writer Guy Bolton, who became Wodehouse's closest friend and a regular collaborator.

Wodehouse also wrote scripts and screenplays and, in August 1911, his script A Gentleman of Leisure was produced on the Broadway stage.

His writing for plays also turned into movie scriptwriting, starting with the 1915 film A Gentleman of Leisure. He joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1930 for a year, and then worked for RKO Pictures in 1937.

Wodehouse's only advice for would-be writers was "apply the seat of the trousers to the surface of the chair."

Wodehouse moved to France in 1934 for tax reasons where he bought a house near Le Touquet in the north.

In 1940 Wodehouse was taken prisoner at Le Touquet by the invading Germans and interned for nearly a year.

After his release, Wodehouse made some humorous broadcasts from German radio in Berlin. Though the talks were comic and apolitical, they were taken amiss in Britain at the time and there was a threat of prosecution. He never returned to England, living from 1947 until his death in the US.

Wodehouse was later exonerated and in 1974 the British prime minister, Harold Wilson, intervened to secure a knighthood for him which was announced in the January 1975 New Year Honours list.

He died of a heart attack in Southampton, New York on February 14, 1975 at the age of 93. Wodehouse was buried at Remsenburg Presbyterian Church four days later.

Oscar Wilde

EARLY LIFE  

Oscar Wilde was born at 21 Westland Row, Dublin on October 16, 1854.

Photograph taken in 1882 by Napoleon Sarony

He was the second of three children born to surgeon Sir William Wilde and Jane Wilde, two years behind William ("Willie").

William Wilde (March 1815 –April 19, 1876) was Ireland's leading ear and eye surgeon. He invented the "Ophtholmosope" an instrument for inspecting the interior of the eye especially for focusing on the retina. Also he was the commissioner for Irish Census and discoverer of prehistoric dwellings in the bogs writing books on archaeology and folklore.

He was a renowned philanthropist, and his dispensary for the care of the city's poor, situated 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.

Sir William was knighted in 1864 for his services as medical adviser and assistant commissioner to the censuses of Ireland.

Wilde's mother Jane (December 27, 1821 – February 3, 1896) was herself a successful writer and an Irish nationalist. A revolutionary poet under the pen name "Speranza" and authority on Celtic folklore, she read the Young Irelanders' poetry to Oscar and Willie, inculcating a love of these poets in her sons. Lady Wilde's interest in the neo-classical revival showed in the paintings and busts of ancient Greece and Rome in her home.

Lady Wilde by Frank Harris

Oscar adored his mother, who was heartbroken when her son was imprisoned. She refused to leave her house and died when he was in jail.

Oscar was brought up at Westland Row. In June 1855, the family moved to 1 Merrion Square, a fashionable residential area. Here, Lady Wilde held a regular Saturday afternoon salon with guests including such figures as Sheridan le Fanu, Samuel Lever, George Petrie, Isaac Butt and Samuel Ferguson.

Wilde family home on Merrion Square. By Pi3.124 

Between 1864 to 1871, Oscar spent the summer months with his family in rural Waterford, Wexford and at William Wilde's family home in Mayo. Here the Wilde brothers played with the future novelist George Moore.

Oscar was educated at home up to the age of nine. He attended the fee paying Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, Fermanagh from 1864 to 1871.

Oscar won a royal scholarship to Trinity College, Dublin where he studied the classics from 1871 to 1874. He was an outstanding student, and won the Berkeley Gold Medal, the highest award available to classics students at Trinity gaining first class honours in Classics and Humanities.

He was granted a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where Oscar continued his studies from 1874 to 1878. He led there an aesthetic circle and won the 1878 Oxford Newdigate Prize for his poem "Ravenna". He graduated with a double first.

Oscar Wilde at Oxford

CAREER 

Wilde once quipped "I never put off till tomorrow what I can possibly do-the day after." Despite giving the impression he was lazy, in fact Wilde worked hard; by the late 1880s he was a father, an editor, and a writer.

Wilde had been publishing lyrics and poems in magazines since entering Trinity College, especially in Kottabos and the Dublin University Magazine. In mid-1881, a collection of his works titled Poems was published. It sold out its first print run of 750 copies, prompting further printings.

After leaving Oxford, Wilde travelled around deliver lectures on the new "English Renaissance in Art" and interior decoration. He made a huge impression in 1882 in Canada and the USA with his flamboyant style during his lecture tour.

Keller cartoon from the Wasp of San Francisco depicting Wilde on the occasion of his visit there in 1882

After marrying Constance Lloyd in 1884 Wilde moved around English high society gaining his reputation as a wit supported by his wife's fortune.

With a family to support, in mid-1887 Wilde became the editor of The Lady's World magazine. He promptly renamed it The Woman's World and raised its tone, adding serious articles on parenting, culture, and politics, keeping discussions of fashion and arts.

Oscar Wilde was jailed for two years in 1895 for homosexual offences with Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas. His reputation was banjaxed by the trial.

When he was released two years later, Wilde was an outcast from society. He spent his last three years penniless, in self-inflicted exile from artistic circles. He quipped: "When I was young I used to think money is the most important thing in life; Now that I am old, I know it."

Wilde's death merited only a few sentences in the newspapers of the day.

TRIAL AND IMPRISONMENT 

In mid-1891 Wilde was introduced to Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas. By 1893 they were consorting together regularly in a tempestuous affair.

Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas in 1893

On February 18, 1895, Lord Douglas' father the Marquess of Queensberry left his calling card at Wilde's club, the Albemarle, inscribed: "For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite" [sic].

Wilde, encouraged by Douglas and against the advice of his friends, initiated a private prosecution against Queensberry for libel. During the trial Wilde's true relationship with Bosie came to light. This led to Irishman's own arrest and trial for gross indecency with men. After two more trials Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour.

Wilde in the dock, from The Illustrated Police News, 4 May 1895

Standing handcuffed on his way to prison in the pouring rain, Wilde quipped "If this is the way Queen Vic treats her convicts, she doesn't deserve to have any."

When Wilde was publicly derided at Clapham Junction while being transferred to Reading Jail, he saw a parallel between his plight and the mockery of the arrested Jesus Christ.

When he was released on May 19, 1897, Wilde moved to France under the assumed name of 'Sebastian Melmoth', after the central character of the gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer.

WORKS 

Wilde wrote one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, which was first published complete in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. An intense autobiographical novel, Dorian Gray achieved eternal youth by his portrait ageing on his behalf.  It was severely criticised as immoral.

Wilde was deeply impressed by the English writers John Ruskin and Walter Pater, who argued for the central importance of art in life. He later commented ironically on this view when he wrote, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, "All art is quite useless". This quote also reflects Wilde's support of the aesthetic movement's basic principle: "Art for art's sake".

The Duchess of Padua was a five-act melodramatic tragedy set in Padua. Wilde wrote the play in blank verse for the actress Mary Anderson in early 1883 while she was in Paris. After she turned it down, it was abandoned until its first performance at the Broadway Theatre in New York City under the title Guido Ferranti on January 26, 1891, where it ran for just three weeks. Wilde's reaction to its failure was "The play itself was a profound success- but the audience was a profound failure".

Wilde's play Salome tells in one act the Biblical story of the stepdaughter of the tetrarch Herod Antipas, who, to her stepfather's dismay but to the delight of her mother Herodias, requests the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter as a reward for dancing the dance of the seven veils. The play was written in French but was banned in 1892 by Lord Chamberlain on the grounds of portraying biblical characters. It was eventually premiered in Paris on February 11, 1896, while Wilde was in prison.

Wilde wrote four successive comical plays in the 1890s. The first one was Lady Windermere's Fan, which was written for the actress Lilly Langtry in 1892. It was first performed on February 20, 1892, at the St James's Theatre in London.

A Woman of No Importance premièred on April 19, 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre. Like Wilde's other society plays, it satirized English upper-class society.

An Ideal Husband opened on January 3, 1895 and continued for 124 performances until Wilde's arrest for "gross indecency." His most autobiographical play, it's ironic that An Ideal Husband was the last play before Wilde's fall as it features Sir Robert Chiltern MP who is faced with public disgrace.

His witty comedy The Importance of Being Earnest was first performed on February 14, 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London. Though it was Wilde's most successful play it closed the same year as it opened due to the scandal involving the playwright and Lord Douglas.

The original production of The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895 

Dame Edith Evans once said she'd played Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest everywhere except underwater.

Wilde wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol whilst incarcerated there for homosexual offences. The finished poem was published by Leonard Smithers on February 13, 1898 under the name C.3.3., which stood for cell block C, landing 3, cell 3.

APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER 

The face that launched a thousand quips was covered by long, flowing hair.

Wilde reclining with Poems, by Napoleon Sarony in New York in 1882.

While at Magdalen College, Oscar Wilde became particularly well known for his role in the aesthetic and decadent movements. He began wearing his hair long and openly scorning so-called "manly" sports, and began decorating his rooms with peacock feathers, lilies, sunflowers, blue china and other objets d'art.

Wilde's behaviour cost him a dunking in the River Cherwell in addition to having his rooms trashed, but the cult spread among certain segments of society to such an extent that languishing attitudes, "too-too" costumes and Aestheticism generally became a recognized pose. Aestheticism was caricatured by Gilbert and Sullivan in their 1881 mocking operetta Patience.

Oscar Wilde had an enormous centre parting with a necktie attachment and often wore a cravat and knee breeches. He habitually carried a huge lily or sunflower and was known for wearing a green carnation. The green carnation thence became a symbol of homosexuality in the early 20th century, especially through the book The Green Carnation and Noël Coward's song, "We All Wear a Green Carnation" in his operetta, Bitter Sweet.

Wilde desired to bring some color and ornamentation back into the Victorian drab costumes and he favoured velvet jacket, flowing ties and fancy waistcoats together with jewelled watch chains and flower buttonholes, silk stockings and satin knee breeches.

Oscar Wilde in 1889

He lost his Irish accent when underground mockery forced Wilde to switch to an Edwardian toff's drawl.

Full of bon mots, Wilde made a living from his wit. "Are you enjoying yourself, Mr Wilde?" enquired the hostess. "Certainly" he replied, there is nothing else here to enjoy."
"The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it".
"We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities."
"I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar and often convincing."
"The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on."

The word “dude” was coined by Wilde and his friends as a hybrid of duds” (slang for clothes) and “attitude”.

RELATIONSHIPS 

After graduating from Magdalen, Wilde returned to Dublin, where he met and fell in love with Florence Balcome. She in turn became engaged to Bram Stoker, the creator of Dracula. On hearing of her engagement, Wilde wrote to her stating his intention to leave Ireland permanently.

In London, Wilde met in 1879 Constance Lloyd, daughter of the wealthy QC, Horace Lloyd. A demure, religious, happy and pretty girl, he fell head over heels in love. Oscar described Constance as a “grave, slight, violet-eyed little artemis”.

When Oscar was on his lecture tours, he and Constance telegraphed each other twice a day. They were besotted during their courtship.

Constance Lloyd. Painting by Louis Desanges 1882

Constance was visiting Dublin in 1884 when Oscar was in the city to give lectures at the Gaiety Theatre. He proposed to her and they married on May 29, 1884 in Paddington, London.

They honeymooned in Paris and set up home at 16 Tite Street, Chelsea. Constance's allowance of £250 allowed the Wildes to live in relative luxury. He said "Town life nourishes and perfects all the more civilised elements in man"

The couple had two sons, Cyril (1885) and Vyvyan (1886).

Oscar, Constance and Cyril

However, problems were occurring, Constance was soon putting on weight and sickening; her heavy, bloated body started sickening Oscar, whose eyes began wondering. She was finding it more and more difficult to chide Oscar's mocking of her Christian beliefs and their marriage.

Wilde's sexual orientation has variously been considered bisexual or gay, depending on how the terms are defined. His inclination towards relations with younger men was relatively well-known within his circles. In 1886 he embarked on his first homosexual affair with Robbie Ross, a Cambridge student.

More and more rumours were reaching Constance's ears of Oscar's affairs. In 1895 Wilde sued the Marquess of Queensberry, for libel and as a result Wilde's true relationship with his son Lord Alfred "Bosie" Douglas. came to light. Wilde was subsequently jailed for two years in 1895 for homosexual offences with Lord Douglas.

Wilde's marriage finally broke up because of the scandal involving him and Lord Douglas. Constance changed her surname to Holland and sent her sons to Switzerland to be educated while she travelled on the European continent. Being deprived of his sons was Oscar’s biggest grief.

Constance 1896 in Heidelberg

In 1898 Constance had spinal surgery in Genoa and died soon after on April 7th. She was buried in Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa, Italy.

Cyril was killed in France in World War I. Vyvyan survived the war and went on to become an author and translator.

HOBBIES AND INTERESTS 

He liked the music of Mozart and Chopin.

Wilde: "I like Wagner's music better than any other music. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage."

Oscar Wilde once asserted the only exercise he took was breakfast in bed. He also quipped "Football is a game for rough little girls not delicate little boys."

Despite this he was very physically strong. At Oxford University when a gang of students tried to beat Wilde up he booted out the first, virtually knocked out the second with a punch, threw out the third through the air then carried the fourth downstairs and buried him beneath his own furniture.

Wilde briefly took up rowing but insisted on maintaining a stately and unhurried pace. He was a strictly non-playing member of Magdalen College, Oxford Cricket Club.

He never took up hunting. Wilde said that fox hunting was, "the English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable."

Oscar Wilde had a curious habit of tearing off the top corner of a page as he read it, rolling the paper into a ball and then popping it into his mouth.

DRINK 

When the flamboyant Wilde lectured his way round America he ended up drinking gold miners under the saloon tables of the Wild West.

When arrested for homosexual offences, Wilde was drinking hock wine and talking to Lord Douglas at London's Cardogan hotel.

The wit and playwright liked champagne and regularly frequented the Café Royal at 68 Regent Street, London, a French style restaurant.

HEALTH 

Wilde is believed to have had syphilis for a number of years having originally caught it from a female prostitute whilst at Oxford. By the 1890s his teeth had turned black from the mercury he took for it.

On one occasion whilst staying with friends at a country house, the Irish writer and wit came down for breakfast looking very pale. "I'm afraid you are ill" remarked someone, "No not ill" replied Wilde. Only tired. The fact is I picked a primrose in the wood yesterday and it was so ill I have been up with it all night."

During his stay at Reading Gaol, Wilde suffered from a long-term infected ear. Earlier after a failed operation by an ear specialist Wilde was informed how much it had cost. He replied "Oh well then, I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means."

Wilde's cell in Reading Gaol. By Jack1956

BELIEFS 

Though Wilde lived a bohemian lifestyle, he spent his life wondering whether to become a Catholic or not. However, he still couldn't resist using his legendary wit to mock religion alongside everything else he did. "Truth in matters of religion is simply the opinion that has survived." he once quipped.

By 1900 Oscar Wilde was dying in a shabby Paris bedroom. He had seen into the depths of his own soul after a lifetime of deprivation and his time in prison had led him to reflect on his moral errors. On his deathbed when asked by Father Cuthbert Dunne if he wished to be received into the Catholic Church, the dying writer raised his hand.

DEATH 

Oscar Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on November 30, 1900.

There are two versions of Wilde's last words in a Paris bedroom. Either accepting a drink of champagne, he remarked so "I am dying beyond my means". Or staring at his shabby Paris bedroom, "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go."

Different opinions are given on the cause of the meningitis; His biographer Richard Ellmann claimed it was syphilitic; Wilde's physicians, Dr. Paul Cleiss and A'Court Tucker reported that the condition stemmed from an old suppuration of the right ear and do not allude to syphilis. Most modern scholars and doctors agree that syphilis was unlikely to have been the cause of his death.

Wilde was buried in the Cimetière de Bagneux outside Paris but was later moved to Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

The tomb of Oscar Wilde in Père Lachaise Cemetery. By Agateller

Oscar Wilde's grave is covered with old lipstick kisses from his female fans.

Sources That's Life, A History Of Fashion by J. Anderson Black and Madge Garland

John Wesley

EARLY LIFE 

John Wesley was born on June 28, 1703 in Epworth, 23 miles (37 km) north-west of Lincoln. He was christened John Benjamin, but never used the second name.

"John Wesley," by the English artist George Romney

He was the fifteenth child of clergyman and poet Samuel Wesley and his wife Susanna Wesley (née Annesley).

His Father, Samuel was a staunch High Churchman whose lifework was to minister to the inhabitants of the North Lincolnshire marshlands. His Mother Susannah was also very devout and both his parents were influenced by the Pietist movement.

His younger brother Charles was the famous hymn writer. John said that Charles' hymnal was the best theological book in existence.

John Wesley was brought up in poverty; his father was the Anglican priest in one of England's lowest-paying parishes. He had numerous children to support and was rarely out of debt even spending time in debtor's prison.

On February 9, 1708 disgruntled members of Samuel Wesley's congregation started a fire which destroyed the Epworth vicarage. The six-year-old John Wesley was trapped in his bedroom until he was rescued by a tall neighbour who stood on a friend’s shoulders. "A brand plucked from the burning" is how he later described it.

The rescue of the young John Wesley from the burning rectory by Samuel William Reynolds

John was brought up strictly and his mother would whip him to teach him to cry softly.

The Wesley children's early education was given by their mother. She educated John and his siblings in all ways including to abhor sin. She was a strict teacher and gave John one day to learn the alphabet.

In 1713 John was admitted to the Charterhouse School, London, where he lived the studious, methodical, and (for a while) religious life in which he had been trained at home.

In 1720 John entered Christ Church College, Oxford (M.A., 1727).

CAREER 

In August 1727, after taking his master's degree, Wesley returned to Epworth as his father had requested his assistance in serving the neighbouring hamlet of Wroot. Ordained a priest on September 22, 1728, Wesley served as a parish curate.

He returned to Oxford in November 1729 at the request of the Rector of Lincoln College and to maintain his status as junior fellow.

On October 14 1735, John and his brother Charles sailed on The Simmonds from Gravesend, Kent for Savannah in Georgia Colony in British America. They went on behalf of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to bring the Gospel to the Indians.

Wesley preaching to a tribe of Native Americans. Engraving By https://wellcomeimages.org

The trip didn't work out. John Wesley became upset when Sophy Hopkey, the 18-year-old niece of Savannah's chief magistrate who he was in love with married someone else. He barred her from Holy Communion, her husband sued him and the trial dragged out.

On top of this controversy Wesley has prohibited whisky to the Native Americans and on one occasion attacked a barrel of whisky on the docks with an axe. After an unsuccessful ministry of two years Wesley returned to London.

John Wesley experienced a conversion to Evangelical Christianity on May 24, 1738 just three days after his brother Charles had a similar experience. The location was a Moravian church at 28 Aldersgate Street, London.

John and brother Charles Wesley believed that their call was to travel to preach the Gospel and as opposition grew from the established churches they were forced to go to the market place or common.

John Wesley preaching. By https://wellcomeimages.org

Originally John Wesley was not overly keen on the idea of preaching outside of a church. One day when visiting the evangelist George Whitefield he was shocked to find Whitefield preaching outside a church building to some Welsh miners. At the time Wesley believed that by taking God's Word out of the church and mixing the spiritual with the secular, he was profaning God and consequently he couldn't see how anybody could be saved outside a church building. However Wesley's views changed in the midst of his preaching at a Society meeting near Bristol. The topic was the Sermon on the Mount and as he spoke he realized Jesus had preached the original message outside. The next day he found himself preaching to 10,000 coal miners from Isaiah 61 in the open air.

Again and again in Wesley's journals, there are notes of meetings where "men, women and children wept and groaned and trembled exceedingly."

For over 50 years Wesley preached 15 times a week on average. He said regarding preaching to plain people "We should constantly use the most common little, easy words (so they are pure and proper) which our language affords". Wesley in fact preached in a gentleman's style with a great deal of personal magnetism.

Wesley preaching. Portrait by William Hamilton.

When he preached in the fields and streets of England many people became furious at Wesley's Gospel of sin and salvation. In one town an angry mob beat him until he was bleeding. They dragged Wesley to the home of the mayor and shouted "kill the heretic". The mob was ready to lynch the Methodist whose message they couldn’t stand. Wesley prayed and out of the crowd stepped a muscular ruffian who said “Sir, my life will be spent in your service, follow me to safety.”

He preached over 40,000 sermons in total, sometimes to crowds of over 20,000 people without a PA system.

The number of works Wesley wrote, translated, or edited, exceeds 200, including sermons, commentaries, hymns, a Christian library of fifty volumes, grammars, dictionaries, and other textbooks, as well as political tracts.

In 1778, Wesley began the publication of The Arminian Magazine, not, he said, to convince Calvinists, but to preserve Methodists. He wanted to teach the truth that "God willeth all men to be saved."

John Wesley's rule for money was to save all he can and give all he can. Whilst a student at Oxford he had £30 a year. He lived on £28 and gave £2 away. His income increased to £60, then £90, and then £120 but he still lived on £28 and gives the rest away.

He is said to have received at least £20,000 for his publications, but used little of it for himself. His charities were limited only by his means. He died poor.

Wesley saw communicating with the Lord as the most important part of his work. “I have so much to do, that I must spend several hours in prayer before I am able to do it.”

Wesley habitually got up at 4.00 am and returned to bed at 10.00 pm.

In his eighties Wesley complained that he found it difficult to do more than 15 hours of work a day.

BELIEFS 

The young John Wesley was influenced by the book A Serious Call by the religious writer William Law, which advocated a simple and pious life. He thought it would hardly be equalled in the English tongue, either for beauty of expression, or for justice and depth of thought.”

At Oxford, John joined a prayer group in 1729, which had been formed by his brother Charles two years earlier. John soon became its leader moulding it in line with his own conviction.

The Holy Club members fasted, went without sleep, lay on grass on frosty nights, visited the sick and prisoners, but it was all good works and no personal salvation. Due to their methodical ways they were scathingly called "Methodists".

On a stormy and dangerous trip back from Georgia, Wesley was greatly impressed by the calm faith of some of his fellow passengers, a group of Moravians from Austria who sang hymns in the midst of the storm.

A few months after his disastrous Georgia experience, a down-beaten John Wesley attended a meeting at Aldersgate, London. Whilst a passage from Luther's Preface to the Romans was read, Wesley felt his heart "strangely warmed".

After Wesley had this conversion experience he visited Count Zinzendorf's Moravian community to see how the Gospel was lived out in community. He then returned to England and founded the Methodist movement, an offshoot of the Anglican Church, to spread "scriptural holiness" throughout the land.

England was in need of spiritual surgery. This was the era of the hunting, shooting, bottle a day parson who entered the ministry not on account of a vocation but because it offered a gentlemanly way of living. Often the church was the only profession open to a younger son who got his post through family influence. He embraced religion as casually as he might have bought a commission in a regiment. The churches often stood empty and there were multitudes in the cities and countryside that knew no more of the Christian message than an inhabitant of the "Dark Continent." John Wesley saw his mission as to reform the nation and spread Scriptural holiness over the land.

Wesley preaching to his assistants in the City Road Chapel 

John Wesley was one of the few prominent leaders of the 17th century awakenings to preach an "Arminian" Gospel. He opposed Calvin's doctrine of predestination and for a time he split with fellow evangelist George Whitefield over this issue. However on November 5, 1755 he wrote in his journal "Mr Whitefield called upon me. Disputings are no more. We love one another and join hand in hand to promote the cause of our common master." The Calvinist Whitefield and the Arminian Wesley remained good friends for the remainder of their lives.

RELATIONSHIPS 

Following an illness in 1748 John Wesley was nursed by a housekeeper at an orphan house in Newcastle, Grace Murray. Taken with Grace they began courting.

Wesley invited Grace to travel with him to Ireland in 1749 where he believed them to be betrothed though they were never married.

 John Wesley married Mary Vazeille, (also nicknamed 'Molly'), the widow of a London merchant in 1751. He fell in love with her after she nursed him back to health after a fall on the ice.

Molly was described as "a well-to-do widow and mother of four children. The couple had no children themselves.

Wesley was not an easy man to live with. For two years she tried to travel with him, but couldn't cope with his hectic schedule, and her health and nerve broke.

Molly grew antagonistic to Wesley, wrote critical letters and spied on him,

In 1771 John Wesley separated from Molly. She had nagged him intolerably and habitually heckled him in his meetings. He eventually took his leave from her saying "You have laid innumerable stumbling locks in the way, both of the wise and unwise. You have served the cause and increased the number of rebels, deists, atheists and weakened the hands of those that love and fear God. If you were to live a thousand years twice fold; you could not undo the mischief which you have done. And until you have done all you can towards it, I bid you farewell."

APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER 

Wesley was described as below medium height, well proportioned, strong, with bright eyes, a clear complexion, and a saintly, intellectual face.

John Wesley by George Romney crop

He was calm, good, honest, zealous, compassionate and matter-of-fact,

Powerful, autocratic and charismatic, Wesley was given to self praise.

Wesley enjoyed company but was not renowned for his sense of humour.

Wesley popularised the phrase "cleanliness is next to Godliness" in his Sermon "On Dress". The term originated in the writings of the ancient rabbi Phinehas Ben Yair.

HOBBIES AND INTERESTS 

Before he co-founded the Holy Club, Wesley enjoyed walking, field sports and was a good swimmer.

Most of the many books Wesley devoured, he read in the saddle as he rode with a slack rein towards his next meeting.

Wesley had a strong interest in science, and became convinced that the new science of electricity could benefit humanity. He pioneered the use of electric shock for the treatment of illness and published books describing his techniques and the many cases he had treated.

Sketch of an electrical machine designed by Wesley By https://wellcomeimages.org/

John Wesley's love for animals was such that Methodism became synonymous with animal advocacy. He wrote: "I believe in my heart that faith in Jesus Christ can and will lead us beyond an exclusive concern for the wellbeing of other human beings to the broader concern for the wellbeing every living creature on the face of the Earth."

HOMES AND CHAPELS 

Wesley was brought up in a handsome rectory, which was burnt down in 1708 by a mob politically opposed to the high church views of his father. Samuel Wesley rebuilt the rectory in the same year.

The first Methodist chapel in London was a disused cannon foundry. Wesley purchased the building's lease for £115, then spent a further £700–£800 on refurbishment costs, creating a chapel able to accommodate 1,500 people, plus a smaller meeting room.Wesley first preached in the place of worship on November 11, 1739.

The Methodist Chapel in Bristol was built by John Wesley in 1743. Above it are the rooms where Wesley and his preachers once lived. It is the oldest still-existing Methodist chapel in the world.

One of John Wesley's most famous preaching places was a subsided Mine which formed into the shape of an Amphitheatre. In 1762 a violent gale forced his congregation to shelter there and it became a regular meeting place for his preaching where thousands were able to attend.

The City Road chapel opened in 1778 to replace John Wesley's earlier London chapel, the Foundery.

John Wesley's House, a mid-Georgian townhouse, was built in 1779 at the same time as the chapel
Wesley lived for the last 13 years of his life on the first floor of the house, which was pine-panelled throughout.

Exterior of John Wesley;s house. By Graham Portlock and Aisha Al-Sadie

HEALTH 

By 1741 John Wesley had started to travel round Britain to preach the Gospel but had fallen ill. In his journal he wrote of how words from the Gospel of Mark prompted his recovery.

"I was obliged to lie down for most part of the day being easy only in that posture. Yet in the evening my weakness was suspended while I was calling sinners to repentance. But at our love feast that followed beside the pain in my back and head and the fever which still continued upon me, just as I began to pray, I was seized with such a cough that I could hardly speak. At the same time words came strongly in my mind 'These signs shall follow them that believe' (Mark 16v 17). I called on Jesus aloud to 'increase my faith' and to confirm the word of his grace. While I was speaking my pain vanished away, the fever left me, my bodily strength returned and for many weeks I felt neither weakness or pain."

In 1749 Wesley published Primative Physick, which proved to be a bestseller. The work showed how practically all diseases could be cured by brown paper, cold water, lemon, onions and prayer.

Wesley recommended a cold cure for children which involve swallowing six large cobwebs rolled into a ball.

He attributed his good health to getting up early at 4.00 every morning to pray.

DEATH AND LEGACY 

John Wesley died on March 2, 1791, at the age of 87. As he lay dying, his friends gathered around him. He sat up, looked at his loved ones weeping at his bedside, and whispered, “Best of all, God is with us. Farewell, Farewell!”

Wesley on his deathbed: Mezzotint by John Sartain. - https://wellcomeimages.org

He was entombed in the pretty garden behind his chapel on City Road, London.

When Wesley died, the only money mentioned in his will was the miscellaneous coins to be found in his pockets and dresser drawers. He also left behind a good library of books and his well-worn clergyman's gown.

He died an ardent Anglican, having never recognized Methodism as a new denomination.

For over 50 years Wesley preached 15 times a week on average a total of close to 40,000 sermons, sometimes to crowds of over 20,000 people. His evangelization of the proletariat helped keep Britain from a similar revolution to the one France was experiencing at the time.

By the end of the 18th century the Methodist movement had 100,000 members.

Source Great Christian Hymn Writers by Jane Stuart Smith and Betty Carlson.