One branch of literary study discourages the use of a writer’s life to explain their work. Which always tempts me to give a two-word response – Oscar Wilde. In the first two months of 1895, Wilde premiered two plays in London: An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest. In April, the author was arrested for gross indecency with two men, beginning his progress to Reading Gaol, and his name was removed from the playbills.