In 1877, months after the publishing of her first work A Nile Novel, or Kismet, 18-year-old Julia Constance Fletcher was introduced to Oscar Wilde, who was visiting Rome with some mutual friends while she lived there with her mother and stepfather. Wilde would later say that he was "much attracted to her in every way." Finding who he might describe as an intellectual equal during his time away from Oxford, he made sure to stay in touch with Fletcher throughout his time at Oxford and beyond, and after he won the Newdigate Prize for his poem Ravenna, she came to meet him as a fellow published author.