Published here with facing-page annotations and an informative introduction by Nicholas Frankel, the stories pulse with Wilde's trademark wit, sharp social critique, and tragic love. Influenced by the Irish fairy tales he heard as a child, Wilde allowed his imagination to run free across a variety of genres-from mystery to fantasy and the supernatural-while ensuring that his serious social and artistic concerns featured as an undercurrent throughout. From The Happy Prince, a tender story about friendship, compassion, and the transforming power of selfless love, to The Remarkable Rocket, a cautionary tale about a deluded, self-important firework, Wilde's aesthetic preoccupations are evident in every line.
At university, Wilde read Greats; he proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Dublin, then at Oxford. He became known for his involvement in the rising philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin.
After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles. As a spokesman for aestheticism, he tried his hand at various literary activities: he published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on the new "English Renaissance in Art," and then returned to London where he worked prolifically as a journalist. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversation, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day.
When he wrote them, he was best known among fashionable London society as a drawing-room raconteur. Many of the character types now familiar from his comedies first emerged in these stories, along with his gifted uses of parody, melodrama, paradox, and irony.
Even more significantly, they reflect the author's preoccupation with opposites—idealistic love and desire, art and life, sincerity and artifice, innocence and sin, altruism and greed, and honesty and deceit—offering captivating expressions of the themes that dominated Wilde's life and thought.
The Picture of Dorian Gray: Infatuated with his own youth and beauty, Dorian Gray wishes that his portrait would grow old instead of him. When his wish comes true, both his age and his sins are recorded on the canvas. Freed from the physical toll of his wrongdoings, Dorian turns on his friends and drives his lover to suicide, all in the pursuit of pleasure.
To society, he remains handsome and glowing. In the painting, he is hideous. But only one of these images can be real. Detailing the wrongs done to him by Bosie and his family, Wilde also traces his spiritual growth while imprisoned, transforming his hardship into art. In one volume, a new beautifully laid-out edition of four of Oscar Wilde's most famous and influential plays.
This work features Wilde's plays ranging from his early tragedy era to the controversial Salome and little known fragments, La Sainte Courtisane and A Florentine Tragedy. For easier navigation, there are tables of contents for each section and one for the whole volume. At the end of each text there are links bringing you back to the respective contents tables.
I have also added an alphabetical index for the poems and a combined one for all the essays, lectures, articles, and reviews. His mother, who wrote under the name Speranza, was a revolutionary poet and an authority on Celtic myths and folklore. After attending the Portora Royal School, Enniskillen , Wilde was awarded successive scholarships to Trinity College , Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford , which awarded him a degree with honors.
During these four years, he distinguished himself not only as a clever classical scholar and poseur but also as a poet by winning the coveted Newdigate Prize in with a long poem, Ravenna. In Wilde married Constance Lloyd , daughter of a prominent Irish lawyer; in and two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan, were born.
During this period of apprenticeship as a writer, he published «The Happy Prince and Other Tales», which revealed his gift for romantic allegory in fairy tale form. In the last decade of his life, Wilde wrote and published almost all of his major works. In his only novel, «The Picture of Dorian Gray», Wilde combined the supernatural elements of the Gothic novel with the unspeakable sins of French decadent fiction.
Accused of being a sodomite, Wilde filed a libel suit. His friends urged him to flee to France, but Wilde refused, unable to believe that his world was ending.
He was arrested and ordered to stand trial. Wilde testified brilliantly, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict. He served most of his sentence in Reading Gaol, where he wrote a long letter to Douglas his couple full of recriminations against the young man for encouraging him to dissipation and distracting him from his work.
In May , Wilde was released from prison, bankrupt, and immediately left for France, hoping to regenerate as a writer. However, his only remaining work was «The Ballad of Reading Gaol», which reveals his preoccupation with inhumane prison conditions. Despite constant money problems, he maintained an unwavering joy of soul that sustained him, and was visited by such faithful friends as Max Beerbohm and Robert Ross, later his literary executor. He also met with Douglas. He died suddenly of acute meningitis brought on by an ear infection.
In his last moments of semi-consciousness, he was received in the Roman Catholic Church, which he had always admired. Ravenna is a poem written in March and published a year later.
Wilde used this composition to enter the English poetry competition Newdigate, winning the prize. In addition, it was recited at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford on June 26, In the spring of Wilde spent a vacation in Mediterranean Europe, a trip that enriched his worldview and provided him with themes for other writings. He visited places such as Greece and Italy, and during his stay in the latter country he visited the city of Ravenna, which inspired the poem. Ravenna was one of the main works of the writer who won the recognition of the people.
Oscar Wilde was a controversial figure for his time, he was involved in controversies and even spent some time in jail due to his sentimental and sexual preferences. But he is not only remembered as a social icon, he is also recognized for his wit and narrative, aspects that made him stand out in literary society.
He achieved recognition for his outstanding facet as a playwright although he was also a great poet, receiving prestigious awards thanks to compositions such as Ravenna. In his poems he emphasized beauty, a theme that always captivated him.
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