Julia Constance Fletcher was born to an American Presbyterian minister from Indianapolis named James Cooley Fletcher. Missionary work led the Fletcher family to move around from Brazil to Naples and, in 1877, back to America. Julia C. Fletcher opted to stay in Rome and pursue a career in writing, where she would meet a twenty-two year old Oscar Wilde.

Image credit: "University Park and Second Presbyterian Church from New York Avenue, Indianapolis (1873)," Ingraham & Claflin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons