Oscar Wilde wrote in different forms.
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde ( 16 October 185430 November 1900 ) was an Irish playwright , novelist , essayist , and poet . After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s , he became one of London 's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s . He is remembered for his epigrams , his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray , his plays , as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death . In 1897 , in prison , he wrote De Profundis , which was published in 1905 , a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials , forming a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure .