The Importance of Being Earnest

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The Picture of Dorian Gray (Dover Thrift Editions)

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A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden."

As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment."

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The Happy Prince and Other Tales

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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.

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An Ideal Husband

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

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Works of Oscar Wilde

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This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1909. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... THE FISHERMAN AND HIS SOUL. Every evening the young Fisherman went out upon the sea, and threw his nets into the water. When the wind blew from the land he caught nothing, or but little at best, for it was a bitter and black-winged wind, and rough waves ross up to meet it. But when the wind blew to the shore, the fish came in from the deep, and swam into the meshes of his nets, and he took them to the market-place and sold them. Every evening he went out upon the sea, and one evening the net was so heavy that hardly could he draw it into the boat. And he laughed, and said to himself, "Surely I have caught all the fish that swim, or snared some dull monster that will be a marvel to men, or some thing of horror that the great Queen will desire," and putting forth all his strength, he tugged at the coarse ropes till, like lines of blue enamel round a vase of bronze, the long veins rose up on his arms. He tugged at the thin ropes, and nearer and nearer came the circle of flat corks, and the net rose at last to the top of the water. But no fish at all was in it, nor any monster or thing of horror, but only a little Mermaid lying fast asleep. Her hair was as a wet fleece of gold, and each separate hair as a thread of fine gold in a cup of glass. Her body was as white ivory, and her tail was of silver and pearl. Silver and pearl was her tail, and the green weeds of the sea coiled round it; and like sea-shells were her ears, and her lips were like sea-coral. The cold waves dashed over her cold breasts, and the salt glistened upon her eyelids. So beautiful was she that when the young Fisherman saw her he was filled with wonder, and he put out his hand and drew the net close to him, and leaning over the side he clasped her in his arms. And when he touched her, she gave a ...

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Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde

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Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde (1911) is a collection of poetry Wilde wrote when he was twenty-six years old. It is combined with some later works, including The Ballad of Reading Gaol, which displays Wilde's sensuousness and precocity. Though never well-received, Wilde's poetry is quite unique and deserves more attention than critics have been willing to give it.

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