Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900), poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London’s most popular playwrights in the early 1890s.

Some of Oscar Wilde’s best works include The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, A House of Pomegranates; The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, De Profundis, with Additional Matter, Lady Windermere’s Fan, Intentions, and The Soul of Man, The Duchess of Padua, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Salome.

A collection of fairy tales, written by Oscar Wilde, that was published as a second collection for The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1892). Included in this collection are: The Young King. The Birthday of the Infanta. The Fisherman and his Soul. The Star-Child. Typical fine printing from the Mosher Press. ‘A faithful reprint of the first English edition.’

Wilde could write English of silken delicacy, but in his choice of epithets there are frequent traces of that ‘industry’ which he denounced as the ‘root of all ugliness’. Oscar Wilde’s third comedy, ‘An Ideal Husband’ premiered at the Haymarket on 3 January 1895, before Wilde’s trial, but was not published until after his release from prison.

On his release, Wilde was physically, spiritually, and financially ruined, he went to Paris where he lived in bitterness and despair until his death. Wilde died of meningitis on 30 November 1900 and is buried in Paris.

He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for “gross indecency”, imprisonment. On his release, physically, spiritually, and financially ruined, he went to Paris where he lived in bitterness and despair until his death at the age of 46.
In reply to a critic who had denounced his poetry as “impure and immoral,” Wilde said: “A poem is well written or badly written. In art there should be no reference to a standard of good or evil. The presence of such a reference implies incompleteness of vision. The Greeks understood this principle, and with perfect serenity enjoyed works of art which, I suppose, some of my critics would never allow their families to look at. The enjoyment of poetry does not come from the subject, but from the language and rhythm. Art must be loved for its own sake, and not criticised by a standard of morality.”