Oscar Wilde 1912. The book only briefly mentioned Wilde's life, but subsequently Ransome (and The Times Book Club) were sued for libel by Lord Alfred Douglas. The trial in April 1913 was in a way a re-run of the trials of Oscar Wilde. The trial resulted from Douglas's rivalry with Robbie Ross for Wilde (and his need of money). Douglas lost after a reading of "De Profundis" refuted his claims. Wilde's life was still waiting for independent, true scholarship when Richard Ellmann began researching his 1987 biography "Oscar Wilde", for which he posthumously won a National (USA) Book Critics Circle Award in
Oscar Wilde Centre as the director. Richard Ford, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer, joined the staff in 2008 as an Adjunct Professor. Since 2007 the Centre also administers the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, an annual prize for an Irish writer under 40. Oscar Wilde Centre The Oscar Wilde Centre is an academic research and teaching unit in Trinity College Dublin. It was founded in 1998, and is located at 21 Westland Row, the house in which Oscar Wilde was born and raised. This building, which is on the perimeter of Trinity, was purchased in the 20th century as part of an expansion