After graduating from Trinity College Willie Wilde studied law and was called to the
Irish Bar, but he never actually practised law. His father died in 1876, and in early 1879 Willie and Lady Wilde moved to London, where he became a journalist, serving as a drama critic for
Punch and
Vanity Fair, as a leader writer for
The Daily Telegraph, and as editor of Christmas numbers of several magazines. Willie was a regular guest at the Fielding Club, which during its short life opened its doors at eight o'clock in the evening and remained open all night. The club was famous for its grills, its brandy and its
Pol Roger '74, but its tripe and onions on Saturdays were an especial draw. One member listed Willie among those who were "constant guests" on Saturdays, along with
Henry Irving,
Herbert Beerbohm Tree,
J. Comyns Carr,
Edward Dicey,
Carlo Pellegrini,
Frederic Clay and
Oscar Wilde. Ralph Nevill, the son of Lady Dorothy Nevill, said of Willie Wilde: "Willie Wilde was a clever journalist who, had he been less careless in his habits, might have achieved considerable success. As it was, a number of the articles which he wrote for the Daily Telegraph were little short of brilliant, while as a talker, few could equal him. He was, however, his own enemy, and could not resist the attractions of the moment or settle down long to regular work – in truth, though not very old in years, he belonged to the now almost extinct school of journalists which, taking ‘sufficient is the day for the evil there of’ as their motto, never gave a thought to the future (or anything else) if they happened to have a few pounds in their pockets." By the time of Oscar's marriage, in 1884, Willie was seriously in debt and drinking heavily. On 4 October 1891, aged 39, Willie married a wealthy widow, Mrs
Frank Leslie (1836–1914), the owner of the
Frank Leslie Publishing Company in New York. She was initially attracted by Willie's humour and wit. He proceeded to spend much of his time in New York drinking at the fashionable
Lotos Club, gossiping about London
Society and reciting parodies of his brother's poems, which perhaps suggests that he was jealous of Oscar's success. His marriage was short-lived, Mrs Leslie starting divorce proceedings within a year on the grounds of Willie's drunkenness and adultery. They were finally divorced on 10 June 1893. On his return to London, early in 1892, Willie found that Oscar was the toast of the town for his successful play ''
Lady Windermere's Fan. It is believed that Willie wrote the ambivalent review of the play that was published unsigned in Vanity Fair'' on 27 February 1892 (he had previously been a drama critic for the magazine). The reviewer, whoever he really was, wrote that "The play was 'brilliantly unoriginal,' but the dialogue was 'uniformly bright, graceful and flowing.' He concluded that it was 'an undeniably clever piece of work; and even though it has its weaknesses, it reflects credit on its author. ... It is emphatically a play to see.'" Oscar, believing that he recognised his brother's hand behind the anonymous review, was by then writing
A Woman of No Importance, in which one character says: "After a good dinner, one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations." By now Willie Wilde was in serious financial difficulties and Oscar began giving him money, but bad feeling between the brothers heightened when Oscar discovered that Willie was pestering their mother for money even though she was far from well-off. Oscar once said of Willie, "He sponges on everyone but himself."
Max Beerbohm saw the brothers as mirror images and portrayed them as such in his
caricatures of them. In a letter to the painter
William Rothenstein Beerbohm wrote, "... did I tell you that I saw a good deal of [Oscar's] brother Willie at
Broadstairs?
Quel monstre! Dark, oily, suspect yet awfully like Oscar: he has Oscar's coy, carnal smile & fatuous giggle, & not a little of Oscar's
esprit. But he is awful – a veritable tragedy of family-likeness". Beerbohm later wrote: "My sister
Constance came home one day and summoned my mother and me; she was quivering to tell us what had happened. She knew in advance it was the sort of thing my mother would adore. Well, Constance had been walking along the street and met Willie Wilde – Oscar's brother. In one hand, he was carrying a huge leg of mutton by the narrow part; with his free hand he swept off his hat and bent over double in a grand, ceremonial bow. There was something so grotesquely funny in the way he did it, conveying both the mutton and the bow. We decided it was a first class thing." In January 1894 Willie married Sophie Lily Lees (1859–1922), with whom he had been living. She has been described as "an emotional woman with a tendency to early panic ... she believed (incorrectly) that she was pregnant" She tried to induce an abortion by taking a powder. The marriage caused further distress to
Lady Wilde when the couple moved in with her. She wrote to Oscar on 4 February 1894, telling him of the marriage: "Miss Lees has but £50 a year and this just dresses her. She can give nothing to the house and Willie is always in a state of utter poverty. So all is left upon me." Willie and Lily had their only child,
Dorothy 'Dolly' Ierne Wilde, in July 1895. Lady Wilde wrote Oscar a lengthy letter seeking reconciliation between him and Willie, who, she said, was "sickly and extravagant". She added that she was "miserable at the present position of [her] two sons" and "at the general belief that you hate your brother". She then asked Oscar to hold out his hand to Willie, a request she repeated several times in the letter: "Come then & offer him yr. hand in good faith – & begin a new course of action." ==Later years==