"In 1864 Wilde entered the Portora Royal School at Enniskillen, and in 1871 entered Trinity College in Dublin. In 1874 he left Ireland and went to England to attend Magdalen College at Oxford. As a student there, he excelled in classics, wrote poetry, and incorporated the Bohemian life style of his youth into a unique way of life. He came under the influence of aesthetic innovators such as English writers Walter Pater and John Ruskin. He found the aesthetic movement's notions of "art for art's sake" and dedicating one's life to art suitable to his temperament and talents. As an aesthete, Wilde wore long hair and velvet knee breeches, and became known for his eccentricity as well as his academic ability. His rooms were filled with various objets d'art such as sunflowers, peacock feathers, and blue china. Wilde frequently confided that his greatest challenge at University was learning to live up to the perfection of the china. Wilde won numerous academic prizes while studying there, including the Newdigate Prize, a coveted poetry award, for his poem Ravenna.

In 1879 Wilde moved to London to make himself famous. He set about establishing himself as the leader and model of the aesthetic movement. Besides his hair and breeches, he added loose-fitting wide-collared silk shirts with flowing ties and lavender colored gloves. He frequently carried a jewel-topped cane and was caricatured in the press flamboyantly attired and holding an over-sized sunflower, an icon of the movement. Wilde quickly became well known despite having any substantial achievements to build on. His natural wit and good humor endeared him to the art and theater world, and through his lover Frank Miles, he found it easy to become part of the cliques that frequented London's theater circuit and drawing rooms. He became a much desired party guest, and eventually his popularity led to his being chosen as an advance publicity man for a new Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, Patience, that spoofed aesthetes like himself.

In 1881, Wilde's first book of poems, called Poems, was published. In 1882, short of money, he accepted an invitation to embark on a lecture tour of America. He produced his first play in New York City, called Vera, about nihilism in Russia. According to some, it was canceled at the last moment, probably for political reasons; others say he saw it performed there but that it ran unsuccessfully. Throughout that year he lectured in 70 American cities as well as Ontario and Quebec in Canada on the arts and literature. The tour was an unmitigated smash and Wilde returned to London in 1883 in triumph and richer by several thousand pounds.
By the time he returned from America he had already tired of being the Great Aesthete and began dressing more conventionally. He did a successful tour of the U.K. He also wrote his second unsuccessful play, The Duchess Of Padua. In 1884, he married Constance Lloyd, the daughter of an Irish barrister. They had two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. The family moved into a house in Chelsea, an artist section of London. In 1887, he took a job at Woman's World, a popular magazine for which he wrote literary criticism. In 1888 he published The Happy Prince and Other Tales, a collection of original fairy tales which he wrote for his sons. Two years later he tired of journalism and journalists. He returned to partying and spending his time with friends and lovers, often overstepping the bounds of what was considered morally and socially proper for the time."