Salome is a one-act tragedy by Oscar Wilde. The original version of the play was first published in French in 1893; an English translation was published a year later. The play depicts the attempted seduction of Jokanaan by Salome, stepdaughter of Herod Antipas; her dance of the seven veils; the execution of Jokanaan at Salome's instigation; and her death on Herod's orders.
Illustration by Aubrey Beardsley for the first English edition of the play (1894)
Illustration for Salome, by Manuel Orazi
Lina Munte as Salome in the first production (1896)
Ida Rubinstein as Salome
Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
1882 photograph
The Wilde family home on Merrion Square
Oscar Wilde at Oxford in 1876
Photograph by Elliott & Fry of Baker Street, London, 1881