Product Description
Oscar Wilde was a major celebrity in the late Victorian era.He was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and short story writer.His works are known for their caustic wit.Wilde spent two years in a hard labor prison after being convicted of gross indecency. After Wilde read the works of Peter Kropotkin he became an anarchist philosopher.First published in 1891, Intentions contains four critical essays: The Decay of Lying, Pen, Pencil and Poison, The Critic as Artist, and The Truth of Masks.These essays introduce Wilde's aesthetic philosophy and mark the beginning of a Modernist manifesto in literature and art. ... Read more

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An extraordinary volume for fans and students

Including The Importance of Being Earnest, An Ideal Husband, A Woman of No Importance, Lady Windermere's Fan, and Salomé, this collection showcases Wilde's brilliance and timeless wit. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Amusing, witty.
In this very special edition of Wilde's theatre, it seems that the commentator is a personal enemy of Mr. Wilde We must remember that Wilde is the unique dramatist that adds sweetnes, tenderness, cynicism, wit and bitter critic of his own age. Even though it devoured him (or the Marquis of Queensberry), but the charm, delight and finess of Wilde's theatre is forever and for everybody. I recommend it most enthusiastically. ... Read more

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C&C Web Press brings you the Complete playwrite work of Oscar Wilde. Selection includes an active table of contents. Selection includes the following titles:

A Florentine Tragedy (1908)
A Woman of No Importance (1893)
An Ideal Husband (1895)
Lady Windermere's Fan (1892)
La Sainte Courtisane (1908)
Salomé (1894)
The Duchess of Padua (1883)
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Vera; or, The Nihilists (1880)
... Read more

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This captivating collection contains all nine of Wilde’s charming, sensitive stories for young readers. Included are "The Happy Prince,” a tale of a young nobleman who in his lifetime sought only pleasure, but in death, as a gold-encrusted statue, provides aid to the needy; “The Selfish Giant,” in which children are prohibited from playing in the garden of an unfeeling colossus; and “The Star-Child,” the tale of a beautiful boy whose ugly spirit causes his physical appearance to become equally grotesque. Also here are “The Nightingale and the Rose,” “The Birthday of the Infanta,” “The Remarkable Rocket,” “The Devoted Friend,” “The Young King,” and “The Fisherman and His Soul.”
... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Beautiful piece of literature!
I am a big fan of Oscar Wilde, and this just proves even more how wonderful a writer he is. These stories are for the young and the old. You will laugh and cry. Wilde writes them in such simplicity that they are absolutely wonderful. I personally cried at the end of the story "The Happy Prince" and came very close to doing so for a good number of the other ones. Don't just think that these are sappy kiddy stories though because there is also a great deal of Wilde wit and sarcasm in them. You can't help but smile and laugh. This is really one of those books to share with your friends.

Interesting book with pretty fairy tales in it
I like this book because there are a few little interesting short stories in it. The fairy tales want to tell us something about social problems. If you read this book it opens your eyes so that you can see that there are these problems in our society too. But the book is also good for little children, because the fairy tales are written in a nice language. They are very pretty,
My favourite story in the book is „The Selfish Giant". Because first the Giant is very selfish and doesn't want the children to play in his garden but afterwards he sees the happiness of the children when they play in his garden and this gives him happiness too. Also the relationship between the little boy and the Giant is great.

Nine lovely, tragic tales
I am no expert on Oscar Wilde, but I've been reading fairytales long enough to be able to tell the difference between an enchanting story and a bunch of pap. The nine magically airy yarns in this small collection are definitely in the first category.

"The Happy Prince" and "The Selfish Giant" are perhaps the most famous of the nine. In the first story, the golden statue of a prince weeps for all the suffering people he sees and begs a swallow to strip him of his riches and distribute them to the masses. In the second tale, a giant builds a wall around his beautiful garden to keep out the noisy children, only to find out that he has also locked out the Spring.

"The Young King" is a variation on the theme of "A Happy Prince". When a young monarch learns of the suffering and misery caused by his requirement for a robe, a crown, and a sceptre, he refuses to handle any of these riches and is given a more fitting raiment by a Divine Power. Keeping with the royal theme is "The Star-Child", about a beautiful but horrible young boy whose physical appearance grows to match his ugly spirit. Another little bird appears in "The Nightingale and the Rose", to help a young man win the heart of the woman he loves.

The stories' themes include beauty, tragedy, agony, compassion, innocence, and (Platonic) love. Some characters give their lives, or sell their souls, in the name of love. There are also the same archetypes that appear in dreams: the Divine Child, the Trickster, the Wise Old Man or Woman, the Number 3, and more. Add all this to Wilde's delicate writing and gilded imagination, and you get some of the most original tales ever written.

Though most of these stories end happily, all end tragically. That is to say, even when the endings are happy, someone always dies. Each story manages to associate everything thrilling and exquisite about beauty with the starkness of death. Accordingly, not all of these tales are suitable for children. For example, one scene in "The Fisherman and His Soul" features witches dancing before the devil and the princess in "The Birthday of the Infanta" is a heartless child whose mockery leads to the death of a little dwarf. Though the stories are moral at the core, and often explicitly Christian, they do not always make sense.

Despite the faults, the keening, poignant loveliness shines through, making me want to read each story again and again and again.

The best!
This is the best book I've ever read.It is great for children as well as for grown ups,who shouldn't forget that they were children once too. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Brilliant dialog, profound yet light, excellent murder mystery plot
For a large portion of the book, it seemed as if I was reading Oscar Wilde's own writing.. Gyles Brandreth has projected Wilde's writing so well into the character of Oscar Wilde in this book. Narrated in the first person of Robert Sherard, Oscar's friend, this book draws from Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes as well. Sherard plays Dr. Watson to Oscar's Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle is introduced as Oscar's newly met friend, and his presence is woven into the plot as only a skillful story-teller can do.

The plot is around a young boy called Billy Woods who is found by Oscar, murdered in a candle-lit room, apparently in some sort of ritualistic sacrifice. As Oscar and Robert go about London unraveling the mystery, we are treated to some scintillating dialog - not just about the murder, but of life and love. The author naturally and effortlessly spins the threads of his story in and out of Oscar's real life - juxtaposing the murder plot which involves homosexuality, against Oscar Wilde's eventual conviction for "gross indecency with other men" [which though not part of this story, is mentioned in Robert Sherard's narrative]. The murder plot is revealed in the end by Oscar holding center stage (a la Hercule Poirot), in a room where he has invited all parties concerned - the police, the murderer, his friends who have helped his investigations along knowingly or otherwise. And what a twist to the tale in the end!

Thoroughly enjoyed this book, and will surely read the others in the series. In one word "un-put-down-able"!

Haven't read yet, collecting the complete set first
The only thing I can say right now is that the book came in fine shape and shipped very quickly.

Get to know Wilde
The Oscar Wilde series is extremely interesting.You get to know more about the man, even while he is running around behind the scenes getting more clues to the solution.Here's a hoot, Arthur Conan Doyle appears...they actually were friends. ... Read more

Product Description
Here is some of Oscar Wildes finest short fiction: Lord Arthur Saviles Crime, The Canterville Ghost, The Model Millionaire, The Sphinx without a Secret and The Portrait of Mr W. H. The range of Wildes talent and wit is fully evident in this diverse mix of stories. Within the collection there is an unconventional ghost story about a bungling and inept ghost, a twist on the conventional murder mystery formula and a whimsical fantasy on the provenance of Shakespeares Sonnets. ... Read more

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"Criticism is itself an art." This is one of the singular arguments in what must be one of Oscar Wilde's most compelling critical dialogues ever published. The Critic as Artist explores Wilde's defense of criticism through sharp, witty dialogue and riveting, thoughtful arguments.This theoretical dialogue uses prime examples to discuss many elements, such as criticism as an art form, the true definition of a critic, criticism's value over art, and more. A special treasure for admirers of Wilde and a welcome addition to any bookshelf, The Critic as Artist exemplifies the playwright's witty look on the world and his true love of art. --- About the author: Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1854, Oscar Wilde went on to become a prominent playwright, poet, and novelist all throughout the late Victorian Age.His many accomplishments in the field of writing have earned him praise as one of the most successful authors and playwrights of his era and beyond.He died in Paris in 1900 at the age of 46. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Critic's Critic as Artist
Wilde was glib, and most ages, including ours, don't like that.Today Wilde would end up in a holding cell in Guantanamo Bay pretty quickly, and I'm not sure if I would object.He was a man made for easy times, when one never had to hunker down and say "this is the truth and from this I will not budge."He was, as his hero Meredith says of someone, perhaps Moliere, a sparkling stream--playful, perfectly beautiful and yet somewhat shallow.

And for this reason he is largely ignored as a serious thinker, left for the theater-folks and other phonies to read alone.But I think that we need to take seriously his work, for he is one of the few folks who have the ability to see the honesty in the actor and the phoniness in the hero.And it is in particular his piece "The Critic as Artist" that I want to consider here.This is a didactic dialogue, with our old friend "Ernest" as the straight man.Although Wilde delights in confounding poor Ernest with cleverness, there is a deep point he is making.First, that it is easy to do, and hard to describe.Any drunken savage could carry out any of the "great" acts that are the pivotal moments in a Greek drama.What is so amazing about stabbing someone in the back?But it takes a great person to turn this into an act of heroism or of tragedy, and thus it is the artist, not the actor, who is the source of the greatness.

But the same logic applies to the critic, for he stands to the artist as the artist stands to the actor.Just as the artist re-makes the act, so the critic redefines the art.And just as there is artistic license, so there is critical license--the carte blanche to distort the works of others in the service of one's own genius.It is not simply that an esthete can "play" with others ideas like a cat with a mouse.It is that, but it is also that it is hardly ever clear what things are, even the things we make ourselves.The critic who lets us see what something is, is the one who first brings it to life in this "isness."

And I think every reviewer for Amazon will appreciate this part of Wilde's thesis--for we recognize that we are more than street sweepers cleaning up after some astronaut's ticker-tape parade.We cannot necessarily claim precedence over every writer, let alone every mouse-trap inventor or chocolatier, whose works we review.Yet at our best, we do change what is there.Can we ever look at the Children's Econo-Goggles the same way after reading LabRat8090's wistful reflections?

I don't mean to toot my own horn here, but--toot toot!--I hadbeen gone from the reviewing scene for quite some time, and had frankly been discouraged, feeling that my efforts weren't really being appreciated.And to my surprise, I found that my rank, which had been drifting downwards, had skyrocketed from 393,000 to 66,000!For those of you who aren't part of the "scene," this may seem trivial, but moving up is like climbing a cliff--every inch hurts and you need to always keep your foothold.No one ever breaks into four figures without whoring after the most commonly looked at products--your iPhone accessories, the Courtney Love unauthorized biographies, the Cornel West rap album and so on.And once you get there, it gets rough.People start saying that their competitors' reviews were "unhelpful" and trying to go outside their ratings (get more extreme so you'll come up as `most helpful negative').

So how could it be that without any politicking, any dragging down of others, fortune smiles on me?I think that Wilde was perhaps correct--the future belongs to criticism.And the thing about the great critic, if I can put words in his mouth, is that he reveals the imperfections in the things that he criticizes by casting the cool light of objectivity on them.With such a clear light, minor flaws can be clearly seen.But where does the light come from?Why, from no one other than the critic himself!He is the light source--and the fuel for his lamp's objective light is his own genius, his own passion.Although I pride myself on focusing on the product, the key drawbacks and advantages for the general consumer, one cannot do this without putting one's SELF in.And then the object is a new object.

Wilde ends this piece by saying that the dreamer is he who can find his way only by moonlight, and who has the punishment of seeing the dawn before other men.Can the critic be a dreamer?Moonlight is definitely not as good as sunlight for bringing flaws to the surface.Which is why, by the way, you should beware of making a commitment to someone you fall in love with on a patio outside a large event under moonlight.But that's a different story!And one that doesn't help us in our consideration of this work at hand, and hence has no place here.I see the dawn! [55] ... Read more

Product Description
Oscar Wilde's classic children's tale about how a selfish giant's life is transformed by the arrival of a special child who teaches him about love and friendship is brought to life for a whole new generation with the remarkable four color art of well-known artist and illustrator, Bill Bell. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The Selfish Giant
After reading this book to my 5 year old dozens of times it is still one of her favorites. The illustrations by Bill Bell captivate her as much as the story. An amazingly clear and moral story. I would recommend this book be on every child's book shelf. This one is a life long keeper!

The Selfish Giant
This is a wonderful story, I have read it to all my grandchildren, as young as 3 years old and they understand the meaning. They request it over and over, especially the 3 yr old, (theversion I read to them is from a book of Oscar Wilde short stories, with no pictures, and they still love it)

Good story; Easy read; Even Dad likes it
Good story, good illustrations, no PC mumbo jumbo.

Great book---a must for a child's library.
This favorite story, by Oscar Wilde, has been expertly redone in Mr. Bell's unique style. Full of color and vivid imagery this book will become a favorite in every home. Bill Bell has the ability to capture a moment in brilliant color and this book is no exception. A great collectable for fans of Mr. Bell's art and for readers of classic literature. ... Read more

Product Description
Edited with an Introduction by Ian Small. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Oscar Wilde's genius is in full flower in this eclectic collection of ghost stories, fairy tales and crime stories with a twist
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is best known for such dramatic plays as "Salome": "Lady Windemere's Fan" and his masterpiece "The Importance of Being Earnest." In this new Penguin collection, though, the spotlight is on his considerable abilities as a short story author of genius and wit.
The selections are taken from three short story collections produced by Wilde.
The Happy Prince and Other Tales from 1888:
The Happy Prince is a statue who along with a swallow teaches children the importance of kindness. The statue and the bird are good samaritans who are not understood by the cynical world around them.
The Nightingale and the Rose is a sad story of a nightingale who dies so that a young lover might have a red rose to present to his lady love. She rejects the suitor for a rich man.
The Selfish Giant deals with a greedy giant who is won over by the laughter of children. One of the children is the Christ.
The Devoted Friend tells of a young loving boy and a callous and insensitive miller friend who only wants to be served and not share with others.
The Remarkable Rocket deals with the hubris of a rocket who wants to be the star of the show only to come a cropper.
The Portrait of Mr. W.H. is a literary exploration as to the identity of the man Shakespeare dedicated the sonnets to in the sixteenth century.
In these fairy tales we see Wilde's satire of late Victorian life.
A House of Pomengranates from 1891
The Young King shows how a prince becomes aware of suffering in society.
The Birthday of the Infanta reveals the cruelty inflicted on a dwarf.
The Fisherman and His Soul is a clever tale of the dichotomy between the needs of the body and the soul.
The Star Child deals with the education of a child who fell from the stars. He learns the importance of kindness to animals and human beings in need.
Lord Arthur Saville's Crime and Other Stories from 1891
Lord Arthur Saville is told by a palm reader that he is fated to murder someone. This is an intriguing story which also contains many humorous and witty parts.
The Sphinx Without a Secret is a short story about a woman who invents a past to become more intriguing.
The Canterville Ghost is the best story in the collection. It deals with an American family who live in an old English mansion inhabited by an Elizabethan ghost who murdered his wife and was starved to death by the victim's siblings.
The Model Millionaire is an O Henry type tale in which a kind man is rewarded for a good deed.
Peoms in Prose in 1894 are one page reflections on a variety of topics from the Last Judgement to ruminations on an Elder Tree.
Oscar Wilde's kindness and love of humanity shine in this incandescent stories from fin de siecle London. They will entertain and instruct.

Oscar In Bits
People tend to remember Oscar Wilde for one, or two things, or both - his homosexuality and his cutting wit. His witticism is displayed mostly in his better known works such as "The importance of Being Earnest" in which one would find his established gems like "Never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that will tell one anything." Another of his well known work was his "De Profundis" a melodramatic letter written from his imprisonment after his disastrous defamation trial involving his homosexuality. Penguin Classic's "Complete Short Fiction" is a collection of short stories written with typical Wildean care-free abandon. But the stories, short and sweet, carry a sting. "The Devoted Friend" tells a charming tale with a moral, only for the reader to be told in the end that people don't like stories with a moral. This and other stories in the first part of the book are fairy tales that parents will enjoy the subtleties that Wilde injects into each story, and still find the stories simple enough to read to their children. Readers will enjoy the rest of the book, which consist of a mixture of tales, and some, like "Lord Arthur Saville's Crime", for the dashes of Wildean wit: "I do not work for money; I live entirely for my art." And do ghosts do when the people they haunt do not believe in ghosts? That's "The Canterville Ghost". The variety in this collection best exhibits the true heart of Oscar Wilde. It is a fine introduction to a newcomer to Wilde's literary work. It is refreshing and leaves one in a pleasant and musing, mood. His "De profundis" tends to leave the reader drained; "The Importance of Being Earnest" may leave one with high expectations, and "Dorian Gray" might leave one exhilarated, exhausted, and scarred.

One of the best books ever!
Oscar Wilde is a fantastic writer and person. In this book he devolops his thinking about the world so extrememly good, that he deveserves 5stars. I read a lot of plays by Wilde and some of his short stories and I can only come to one conclusion: This is the best writer ever with Shelley, Keats and Fitzgerald. You have got to love this one. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

A carefully selected resume with commentary of the enormous 1250 page complete collection edited ably by the same Merln Holland
The only thing missing from this careful selection of letters from throughout the life of the prolific and pioneering and brilliant Irishman Oscar Wilde is that letter written under the most impossible of circumstances and often published elsewhere and easily accessible with the imposed and unoriginal title of De profundis, perhaps the most essential letter in all the Wilde opus.

But first, a divergence to a rather dark wood, as contrast to this bright light.

James Joyce's grandson, who emptily boasts of being "a Joyce, not a Joycean," has burned, concealed and otherwise destroyed and made unavailable to scholarly review correspondence and other documents relating to the study of that greatest writer of the Twentieth Century. He has demonstrated himself uninterested and incapable of the study of his own grandfather, but has restricted access and permissions for the academic study of his grandfather's work. He shows interest only in increasing material profit from for example Ulysses (Gabler Edition), the greatest novel of the 20th century, required reading in any upper level college course and thus a guaranteed source of income in any case, no need to restrict access. Thus he completes that publication persecution which persisted throughout his grandfather's too brief yet generous lifetime, and beyond, in which his books could find no publisher in an English speaking land, including in America, the alleged Land of the Free. Apparently this living Joyce inherited his grandmother's intellect and his great-grandfather's economy rather than his grandfather's great heart and mind.

Another cosmopolitan Irishman like James Joyce, and the nineteenth century's greatest writer mainly in English, Mr. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde would fare much better in his progeny. Vyvyan, his son who survived the British imperialist war (unlike his heroic brother) became in later life a brilliant writer on Wilde, including most touchingly in Son of Oscar Wilde. Now Oscar Wilde's grandson, Merlin, has proven himself to be one of the world's leading authorities on the subject of his grandfather, after years of keen academic study and irrepressible heartfelt affection. Merlin would humbly be the first to deny this; yet his body of work and commentary speak for themselves.

Within the publishing industry arose a profitable cottage industry of brief collections of pithy yet empty Wilde quotes and epigrams drawn stricly out of context, seeking to deny Wilde's brilliant social commentary and tame him to a proto-Noel Coward. Merlin saves his monumental grandfather from such a civilizing fate, as well as from the popular rumors, libels and scandals which still hound him. From Merlin we may find The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde, also published in England as Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess. We find Merlin contributing learned yet highly readable commentary and forewords to a number of collections of Wilde's works, including Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Collins Classics) and Stories for Young People: Oscar Wilde (Stories for Young People). He does stoop to contributing one popularized collection in Coffee with Oscar Wilde (Coffee with...Series) as well as phoning in an interview at the end of the recent recording of A Woman of No Importance, an interview in which he is continually interrupted by the aggressive interviewess and in which we find his great humility and untapped wisdom. And of course he is editor of the enormous and highly desirable The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde to which this present edition refers.

This collection, A Life in Letters, truly fulfills its title, drawing us through the full life of Mr. Wilde at every point from his first going to school to his final years before his early and tragic death in 1900. Merlin Holland contributes astute biographical commentary throughout and excellent auxiliary material, including an index of recipients, etc.

This book is highly recommended for any serious student of literature mainly in English, for understanding more clearly Mr. Wilde. This book therefore finds worthy place in any college or advanced high school library, and is a very good and substantial substitute for all of those droll collections of Wildean sayings drawn from the heart of his work. If you thus prefer to sip and to savor rather than avidly to consume your Wilde, here is a good place to start, guided by a brilliant, knowledgable and caring host in his learned grandson Merlin, who so eagerly and rightly shares with us all of the remarkable aspects of his genius and Irish grandfather.

Selected Letters...
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Wilde's grandson Merlin Holland--(himself a Wilde scholar)--has produced this nice edition of selected letters to effect a kind of autobiographical narrative.It works well and will probably suffice for most readers.

Students and scholars, however, will of course require the complete letters--(now inexplicably out of print): this is especially true for the "leftover years" (as Richard Ellmann has termed them): that is, the final 3.5 years of Wilde's life on the Continent after his release from prison in England, May 1897.

The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde

. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Cheap printing
I haven't read the stories yet, my comments are strictly on the illustrations. I love the illustrations of P.J. Lynch, and have purchased many books simply for those. I wondered why this book was so cheap, and now I know. It is printed on cheap paper with no color at all, which of course means the lovely illustrations look very poor. It's very disappointing, so if you do purchase this book, make sure it is for the stories, not the artwork, or try and find a full color printing with better quality. ... Read more

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A Simon & Schuster eBook ... Read more

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It's 1892, and Wilde is the toast of London, riding high on the success of his play Lady Windemere's Fan. While celebrating with friends at a dinner party he conjures up a game called "murder" that poses the question: Who would you most like to kill? Wilde and friends -- including Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, and poet Robert Sherard (the novel's narrator) -- write the names of their "victims" on pieces of paper and choose them one by one. After leaving the party, Wilde scoffs at the suggestion that he may have instigated a very dangerous game indeed....

The very next day, the game takes an all-too- sinister turn when the first "victim" turns up dead. Soon Wilde and his band of amateur detectives must travel through the realms of politics, theatre, and even boxing to unearth whose misguided passions have the potential to become deadly poisons...not only for the perpetrator of the seemingly perfect crimes but also for the trio of detectives investigating them.

Richly atmospheric and as entertaining as Wilde himself, this book is the second in a series destined to delight mystery readers and fans of historical fiction alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

A Real Page Turner
This is the second in a series of so far three novels about Oscar Wilde narrated by Robert Sherard.I read them out of order but that's okay it is not necessary to read them in order.This one starts out with Wilde's Socrates Club meeting on their usual Sunday night to have dinner.Each of the members was instructed to bring a guest with him for the meeting.It is customary for them to play a game after eating so Wilde suggests they play a game called "murder".Each person is instructed to write down on a piece of paper the name of someone they would like to see dead and then the names are put into a bag and mixed together.Each name is pulled out one at a time and the members have to guess who wrote that name.Of course the game takes a serious turn when an invited guest's name is drawn four times and then Oscar Wilde and his wife's name are both drawn.Wilde insists it is merely a game and nothing to worry about.

The next day; however, the first name drawn is indeed found dead.Then subsequent names on the list are found dead and Wilde and Sherard begin to investigate who is killing off the names of the people listed from their game.Sherard's narration is a page-turner filled with mystery, wit and charm as you don't want to put the book down for a minute.Brandreth has filled the novel with historical figures such as Donan Coyle, Bram Stroker, and Lord Alfred Douglas just to name a few.This is a colorful mystery which was a delight to read.I highly recommend all three of Brandreth's Oscar Wilde's mysteries.

Oscar Wilde and a Game Called Murder
I am enjoying this series.As a fan of Oscar Wilde, I love the inclusion of his quotes and a bit of history surrounding Wilde and his time.Just delightful and a good mystery besides.

The celebrity sleuth done right
Oscar Wilde and a Game Called Murder is the second of a projected nine books featuring Oscar Wilde as sleuth. It's a worthy sequel to the first book in the series, Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance. Brandreth is a master of foreshadowing and his original characters are as believable as his real-life characters are true to their originals.

I enjoyed this book very much, and highly recommend it.

Good, not great
Summary: Oscar Wilde gathers a group of friends for a nice meal, that ends with a game where each chooses someone they want to murder. That same night the first of the victims dies and each night after, they die. Unfortunately Oscar is the 13th victim and his wife is the 14th. Can he find the murderer in order to save their lives?

This is a mystery featuring Oscar Wilde as a detective told from the perspective of Robert Sherard, his friend and first biographer. It is the second in the series but I didn't read the first and I don't think it's necessary to read them in order. It would be helpful to be interested in the fascinating personality that is Oscar Wilde and this book also has appearances from Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker.

It's quite a funny book utilizing, I'm sure, many of Wilde's famous sayings (I'm not entirely familiar with all of his work but I imagine some of it is). I was slightly perturbed by the depiction of Wilde as quite a Sherlock Holmes, both with his deductions and personality, and seeming almost to inspire the character as Conan Doyle is far less observant. I also found it heartbreaking to watch the mostly pleasant home life of Oscar and his family, knowing what will come in 1895 (The book is set in 1893.)

Again I did not quite figure out the murderer but I did make some important deductions that brought me closer than I usually am to figuring out the mystery. But I will definitely keep an eye out for the other books in the series.

Overall: 4/5 for a fun book but not entirely gripping (it took me about three days to read because I didn't care that much about finding out who the murderer was).

Dinner with Oscar
Oscar Wilde, the very successful playwright and colorful man about town has formed an eating club - men only in truest Victorian fashion - that would meet monthly.Each member was to bring an interesting guest to the mix and Wilde, of course, would set the menu and the program.When a game of 'who would you murder' was introduced the results were shocking, not just who would be murdered but that those named were actually beginning to be eliminated.Wilde was particularly desperate to solve the crimes quickly since one name on the list was that of his own beloved wife, Constance.

This is the second in a series of novels featuring Oscar Wilde as a detective.The author has done a great deal of research into Wilde's life and that of the late Victorian period.The events in the novels are carefully entwined into actual events in Wilde's life and incorporate people Wilde really did know.The stories are interesting and bring this intriguing figure to life. ... Read more

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A dazzling blend of farce and morality, this play explores human frailty and social hypocrisy. Sir Robert Chilton's secret is discovered and exposed. He is accused of having exploited government secrets for his own gain early in his political career. With this revelation from Mrs. Cheveley comes the threat of blackmail and the ruin of Sir Robert's career. Yet in order to be a successful blackmailer, one's own reputation must be beyond reproach. 2 cassettes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

A Wildely Witty Comedy
Surely, this is one of the most hilarious comedies ever written by anyone. Every page of the script offers up lines of pure, gracefully articulate wit. Wilde's insight is prodigious and relevant as it could have been written as easily about Wall Street as London of 1895: "Private information is practically the source of every large modern fortune." This is the playwright who, when passing through customs into Canada, was asked if he had anything to declare and replied, "Only my genius." The movie with Rupert Everett is spectacularly funny. Wilde has the ability to criticize high society so cleverly that the paradoxes he frames almost seem a compliment. "Fashion is what wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear." And this one: "Vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people." And this great truth: "Soooner or later we all have to pay for what we do." Wilde was a real genius. I strongly recommend that you read his play.

An Ideal Husband
This is a great play, the things that happen with the characters is extremley funny because it deals with morality and marital issues that still exist. The play is set in the late 1800s early 1900s in England. It is a perfect example of how we over anaylize things in society and that if we just "let go" ofwhat an ideal relationship is we will see thatthe acceptance of two individuals is the foundation for a healthy, long lastingrelationship and that there really is no princess or prince charming. What I found to be the funniest thing about it is that the one character who naturally got this without a scandel came off to me as being the most shallow and superfical of the characters. Mabel really has no substance to her, she's not very bright and loves being scolded. Yet at the end of everything is the only one who doesnt waist time trying to anaylize everything that goes on in her relationships with people. I guess we all can learn something from those different from us after all.

Politics, love and black mail - what more could you want?
I actually read An Ideal Husband, a play by Oscar Wilde last month but am just now getting around to reviewing it.

This play contains politics, love, and black mail what more could you want? Turmoil revolves around the main character's ability to handle a threat to reveal a dark secret from his past and possibly jeopardize his marriage.You'll read how each person responds to this information and some great interactions with one another.The deep story line discusses human morals, remorse and the question of if a loved one can accept faults.

I really enjoyed this play. It was a quick read with a story that still works today, a truly timeless piece. If you are looking for a fun steady tale that will make you smile this is the play to pick up.

"Life repeats itself meaninglessly"- T.S. Eliot
The play is a description of the morals and values of Victorian England, where a good hearted man, Chiltern is torn apart between remorse over a mistake he committed in the past and his love and devotion to his wife.
It was quite fascinating to read Chiltern's thoughts of being a victim of feminine adoration as opposed to his masculine love that accepts loved one's imperfections.

Apparently, Wilde believes that the acceptance of loved ones' flaws is a key part of love. Oscar Wilde examines love, honesty, friendship, and forgiveness with a humorous, forcibly happy ending.
Nice plot that cleverly mixes seriousness with humor and cynicism with hope. Each character is attractively built, even Mrs. Cheveley, who is the quintessential evil lady, is frankly an attractive evil character
A century later, the same moral irony and the same human nature still exist.

Great easy Wilde's book
This book is a great nineteenth century literature of one of mi favourites writers ever . It makes a great picture of the english bourgeoisie of the century combined with humour, sarcasm and moral content. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. ... Read more

Product Description
In "The Decay of Lying", Oscar Wilde uses his decadent ideology in an attempt to reverse and therefore reject his audiences' 'normal' conceptualizations of nature, art and morality. Wilde's views of life and art are illustrated through the use of Platonic dialogue where the character Vivian takes on the persona of Wilde. Wilde's goal is to subvert the norm by reversing its values. Wilde suggests to us that society is wrong, not him. Calling on diverse examples - from Ancient Greek sculpture to contemporary paintings - Oscar Wilde's brilliant essay creates a witty, paradoxical world in which the only art worth loving is that built on complete untruths. ... Read more

Product Description

This collection was designed for optimal navigation on Kindle and other electronic devices. It is indexed alphabetically, chronologically and by category, making it easier to access individual books, stories and poems. This collection offers lower price, the convenience of a one-time download, and it reduces the clutter in your digital library. All books included in this collection feature a hyperlinked table of contents and footnotes. The collection is complimented by an author biography. Author's biography and poems in the trial version.

Customer Reviews (6)

Not Complete
Much better table of content than some other collections, but again, De Profundis in this collection is the abridged version.

An excellent (the best?) eBook version of Wilde's works
MobileReference has done a great job of re-editing their first version of this collection, and we've found it very easy to navigate around the entire corpus of Wilde's works. (My wife is a great fan, and I read old and new favorites to her from time to time.)

We also tried a couple of cheaper versions of the complete works, including:

The Complete Oscar Wilde Collection (95 total works). This version is only a buck, but it has odd formatting and one gets to the table of contents by clicking on the cover, not the table of contents link. It appears to be accurate with relatively few typos, but for ease of use and for only four more bucks, choose The Complete Oscar Wilde.

The Picture of Dorian Gray: Complete Text with Integrated Study Guide from Shmoop is an interesting single work version of a classic Oscar Wilde. Shmoop does a good job with younger readers, but we both found new insights even though we've read Wilde's only novel several times over the years. Unfortunately the sample doesn't give any sense of what Shmoop adds to Wilde's own commentary, but if you are as fascinated with the novel as we both are, this is a useful commentary at a reasonable price.

***

Overall, for ease of use on Kindle, this version of Wilde's complete works on Kindle gets our vote. MobileReference also has a useful FAQ on purchasing their books for Kindle:

What books are compatible with Kindle?
All MobileReference ebooks are compatible with Kindle except: The Big English/German/French/Spanish/Italian Encyclopedia and the Concise English Encyclopedia. However, you need to purchase eBooks from MobileReference website (powered by Handango). These books do not have embedded digital rights management (DRM) protection and can be copied to Kindle (main memory or SD card). Books purchased from MobiPocket.com and eBooks.com have DRM protection and will NOT work on Kindle. Also all our books are sold in the Amazon Kindle store. In fact, that is a cheapest way to buy them because Amazon discounts books by about 15%.

Robert C. Ross2009

Comments from the Publisher
Comments from the Publisher:

The book was corrected on March 15th, 2008. The new version organizes poems better and adds links to all Chapters and Acts.

MobileReference

Perfect format for the Kindle!
Perfect format for the Kindle!

I've purchased over 10 of these complete author collections from this publisher. These collections work superbly on the Kindle. Take Mark Twain collection. The collection includes huge number of Mark Twain's works all in one place, searchable and well-organized. If I would have purchased all these books separately, searching for `The Gilded Age' among hundreds of other books on my Kindle would be a nightmare. With Mobile Reference collections, I simply click `Works of Mark Twain', then click Novels> `The Gilded Age'. I can also click `List of works in alphabetical order' > `G' > `Gilded Age'. If I forget the book title but remember that `The Gilded Age' was written by Mark Twain early in his career, I can click on `List of works in chronological order' > (1873) `The Gilded Age'.

If I want another author, say, Charles Dickens, I click `Home' > `Works of Charles Dickens'. If I want Dostoevsky, I click `Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky'. I think this format is perfect for organizing books on the Kindle.

Inside collections, each book has links to chapters and footnotes. The text is nicely formatted and seems to be complete and accurate - something that cannot always be said about inexpensive ebooks. I think these collections are great bargains both in terms of saved money, time, and book organization!

Works of Oscar Wilde. Great ebook!
Complete Works of Oscar Wilde. Huge collection. (80+ Works) FREE Author's biography and poems in the trial version.

This ebook is an excellent collection of literary works by Oscar Wilde - one of the greatest writers in the English language. Very good digital item!

... Read more

Product Description
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Salome and The Importance of Being Earnest are accompanied by Wilde's prison memoirs, poems, and selected correspondence. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Great introduction to an intriguing author
For the reader who has never experienced Oscar Wilde's work before, this collection serves as a fabulous in-depth introduction. Included are Wilde's most well-known works, including "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and "The Importance of Being Earnest." Both are absolutely superb pieces of literature. Also included are a fascinating letter written by Wilde while in prison, an essay on art and criticism, poetry, and personal letters and anecdotes. Serious students of Wilde might want to considering reading a more complete collection, but for a casual fan of classic literature, it's hard to beat this selection. Oscar Wilde should definitely be read by anyone who appreciates a sharp wit and profound intellect.

Wilde
Oscar Wilde was a master of prose. No student of English literature should ignore him; they might not agree with him on a thousand things (even Wilde felt it was perfectly acceptable for him to disagree with himself) but his wit, his humor, and most importantly his love of beautiful things, must not be tossed aside. Wilde was a genius and a master of the English word.

Oscar Wilde
Edited by Richard Aldington. Stories include the picture of dorian gray, salome, the importance of being earnest, de profundis, many poems and the selfish giant.

De Profundis, Dorian Gray and more ...
This edition of Oscar Wilde's work - in addition to its inclusion of much personal correspondence - is a fascinating look at the author and, notably, his personal travails.

The novel, of course, and the plays are classics, but I found the letters to be a juicy narrative all their own. The twists and turns of his doomed affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, affectionately called "Bosie" in touching - and bitter - love notes from prison, are here to peruse. Reading them, you get a sense of Wilde's personal feelings at the time of his famed trial and arrest for sodomy, his anguish at losing Bosie and going to jail. It's fascinating, juicy stuff - made all the more touching by the fact that it all occurred without shame, in plain view, over 100 years ago.

Wilde's a great character, a great author, a good role model for gay life and a hysterical wit.And this book is a must. ... Read more

Product Description
Contains all the Aubrey Beardsley drawings and is the English translation undertaken by Lord Alfred Douglas of Wilde's most brilliant tale of passion, which was originally written in French to avoid (unsuccessfully) Victorian censorship. Salome is a simple tale of complex passion. Wilde's heroine bears no resemblance to her biblical origin. His Salome is no mere instrument of Herodias, but a dangerous and passionate young woman whose thwarted affections for John the Baptist lead to a disasterous climax for all persons involved. Wilde's script is a brilliant look at deep-rooted desires and the dangers of obsession. This edition of the play is a must for anyone building their own theatrical library. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Great addition to any Wilde collection...
The soft-copy volume had the original beautiful Beardsley prints along with the Lord Alfred translation from the french.My only criticism is that the type is rather small, but then again I'm getting older!
All in all, wonderful addition to any home library.

An Audio Edition, Abridged, Here at Amazon
This is but a wee note to these really excellent (if at times misinformed) reviews, that there is an MP3 download version of the play performed, 48 minutes in length -- and it may be purchased here for only 99 pennies!The performers include Jack Evans, Forrest Williams, and Bettye Ackerman.It sounds rather dated and is very abridged, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Seven Veils are not enough to cover the crime
Originally written in French, when Oscar Wilde was in exile in Paris, after his time in prison for having had an affair with young Alfred Douglas, alias Bosie, the future Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas (poet, author, critic and correspondent, 1870-1945), then translated by Lord Alfred Douglas, a translation that is in some editions attributed to Oscar Wilde himself. In spite of his perfect bilingualism, Oscar Wilde let a few English mistakes slip into his French text but that is minor and even attractively exotic. It is difficult to really say if the English version is Wilde's or Lord Alfred Douglas's. But the first thing we can say about this play is that the theme itself is symbolical of Oscar Wilde and his time. Oscar Wilde somewhere is John the Baptist and that metaphor is easy. We will try to go a lot farther in a while. But it is also typical of the time, the very beginning of the 20th century. A time when all the princes and princesses, queens and kings, lords and barons, bankers and industrialists were dancing on a floor thickly littered with bank notes. But a time too when people were dying in the bush in South Africa, or all kinds of natives were suffering under the whip of colonialism. It was a time of hypocrisy in which those who wanted to be truthful to themselves, their beliefs, and at times their gods, be they God himself, or herself, the working class or artistic creation, were running against the thick wall of absolute lack of understanding, of mediocrity and bigotry. It was the time when exploitation was an understatement for what was happening in the mines or the factories of the industrialized countries. It was the time when all kinds of fundamentalist ethics were imposed on the world: hemp was banned from our fields because of the competition its leaves represented to tobacco and the empire that was behind. Absinth was banned for no reason at all, except that it was a heavy competition against wine or other alcoholic beverages that represented big industrial and financial interests. All kinds of sexual abnormality was condemned and persecuted in Great Britain, though France was slightly more liberal. This society was qualified as Victorian, though it was reviving the deep roots of puritan England, the heritage of the old Commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell. Puritanism was one of the fundamental characteristic of this time, with tantalizers and teetotalers and other torturous and tortuous social devices. It was the time of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the time of Dorian Gray in Wilde's own imagination. It was a time when well behaved people did not call a spade a spade, did not even call a spade anything at all because well behaved people had no commerce with that thing and had no word for that thing. It was the time of what was to be illustrated later as Lady Chatterley's lover or Maurice, or so many other intrigues and affairs crossing social classes, the acme of criminal activity in Great Britain at the time. And it is that drama Oscar Wilde lives in Salome. The fact that her society rejects the seer, the prophet, the announcer of the future, the liberator, and at the same time does not have the courage to execute him. And in this society she is the daughter of the Queen and step daughter and niece of the present King who imprisoned and put to death his brother, her father, the former king, and remarried his sister in law, Salome's mother, and by being all that, in two words a female Hamlet, she represents the upheaval which will bring the end of that rotten society. She falls in love with the imprisoned prophet, not because he is a lovable man in any way, not because she feels any sentimental attachment to him, but just because she is fascinated by the negation of her society he carries in himself, in his eyes and his body and his voice in a first ternary grouping of vision, doom and apocalypse, and then with his body and his hair and his mouth in a second grouping of sensual flesh, snakes and kissable lips, rebuilding like that the number of Solomon beyond the Christian trinity, the Jew beyond the Christian saint, the flesh of carnal life beyond the vision of the de-carnalized Christian trinity. And Oscar Wilde pushes this very metaphor to the extreme of transforming Salome from a sensual, sensitive and possessive lover into a vengeful, inflexible and purely animal executioner. Since John did not want to kiss her, she will have his head delivered to her on a silver platter just for the pleasure of kissing it, and, to her dismay, finding out that there is no pleasure in kissing a dead mouth and a dead tongue. The dance of the seven veils she paid for that head, that kiss, was of no avail since it did not deliver the sensual pleasure she was expecting in her foolish blindness. And the step father will have her slain by a plain soldier, like an unimportant piece of trash that has to be discarded and disposed of now she has brought the end of this world into being. How could Oscar Wilde be more visionary and see better the catastrophe of the big war, and all that will follow, being brought up in the future by the soul-less enjoyment of material goods and pleasures, wines and dances that are felling not only the tree that could hide the forest, but the forest itself that could have been hidden by the tree of a prophet, since a voice is only prophetic when you bring it to a dead end, the dead end of its own sacrifice, execution, martyrdom.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

EXCELLENT PRESENTATION OF THIS WILDE PLAY POORLY TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
At this inexpensive price this much sought for and cherished book deserves a space on your trophy-book shelf. Beautifully printed and preserved inside a black embossed box with doubled pages preventing bleed-through of the wonderful images and printing.

UNfortunately we may only appreciate this play truly in the original French WIlde wrote for Sarah Bernhardt: NOT FOR THE LATER ENGLISH TRANSLATOR who killed it -often we hear it was written for HIM, but it was written for Sarah as part of Wilde's ungoing campaign to reveal the hypocrisy, corruption callous violence and immorality of the BRitish self-proclaimed aristocracy.

Wilde as playwright was revolutionary and exposed the profound disease of the BRitish imperialists who had destroyed and sucked dry his nation of birth Ireland, where his parents were nationailists. Study this closely in the original, not in the stilted English translation by one of his stooges in that aristocracy. Or study my own excellent and living translation.

Unfortunately Berkoff's recorded staging of this play must ultimately disappoint.

And BEardsley never actually even read the play he was illustrating, yet the illustrations are his best known work today. UNfortunately (or otherwise) this present edition does not include the highly elaborate art-deco illustrations, so sinister and callous, by BEardsley, but a more simple and "naif" art-deco style by an Italian illustrator Valenti (please see my image for more careful adscription and sample illustrations of those presentable in public)

This edition is a great jewel in any case and one to acquire.

You are free to view mine if you wish. You will find it on my trophy bookshelf next to Coleridge, Dante and Homer. (I keep James Joyce in the bedroom)

It could be a perfect opera
Oscar Wilde touches here a fundamental subject in Christian lore : Salome and John the Baptist, and through them Jesus and the prophesy that he is the Messiah. It would be a perfect subject for an opera because the events are contained in too short a time and the feelings and motivations are too simple and intensely concentrated for a dramaruc play. Salome asks for John's head out of spite because she could not possess him, because he refused to acknowledge her, and also because she knows this will mean the downfall of her step-father, the killer of her own father, and the incestuous husband of her mother. So vengeance is her second motivation. Those motivations are too simple to build up the tragical force of a play, but they are so intense that they could have inspired the most dramatic and powerful music. Oscar Wilde's language is beautiful in manyways but this beauty does not give any complexity to the simpleness of the emotions and motivations. This beautiful language could have become the carrier of a beautiful music. Actually we can hear the music of a Scarlatti, or of a Purcell behind the words, maybe even a Haendel. But as a play it is a little bit flat and without enough depth to build a beautiful performance. As a matter of fact the centrepiece of the play, the dance of the seven veils, is not a dramatic event but a visual and musical event. And we cannot in anyway escape the recollection of the fantastic little black and white film by Clive Barker on the subject. Salome is worth more than just a dramatic play. She can only find her full strength when music and dancing come into the picture, when it is fully visual and musical.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan ... Read more

Product Description
The Happy Prince is the tale of a young nobleman, who in life sought only pleasure but in death, as a gold-encrusted statue, provides aid to the needy. Also included are The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant, The Devoted Friend, and The Remarkable Rocket. Newly designed and typeset in a modern 5.5-by-8.5-inch format by Waking Lion Press. ... Read more