Best Selling Books by Oscar Wilde

An Ideal Husband is an 1895 comedic stage play by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honour. The action is set in London, in "the present," and takes place over the course of twenty-four hours. "Sooner or later," Wilde notes, "we shall all have to pay for what we do." But he adds that, "No one should be entirely judged by their past." Together with The Importance of Being Earnest, it is often considered Wilde''s dramatic masterpiece. After Earnest, it is his most popularly produced play.In the summer of 1893, Oscar Wilde began writing An Ideal Husband, and he completed it later that winter. His work began at Goring-on-Thames, after which he named the character Lord Goring, and concluded at St. James Place. He initially sent the completed play to the Garrick Theatre, where the manager rejected it, but it was soon accepted by the Haymarket Theatre, where Lewis Waller had temporarily taken control. Waller was an excellent actor and cast himself as Sir Robert Chiltern. The play gave the Haymarket the success it desperately needed. After opening on 3 January 1895, it continued for 124 performances. In April of that year, Wilde was arrested for "gross indecency" and his name was publicly taken off the play. On 6 April, soon after Wilde''s arrest, the play moved to the Criterion Theatre where it ran from 13-27 April. The play was published in 1899, although Wilde was not listed as the author. This published version differs slightly from the performed play, for Wilde added many passages and cut others. Prominent additions included written stage directions and character descriptions. Wilde was a leader in the effort to make plays accessible to the reading public.

This carefully crafted ebook: "Teleny: a pornographic novel attributed to Oscar Wilde" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Teleny is an authorless and explicitly homoerotic novel often attributed to Oscar Wilde. It is an important antithesis to the prudish idealism of the neo-classic and neo-romantic lyric love poetry of the end of the century. It is a work of unmasking the cynical double moral standards of the Victorian era: The love of Camille and Teleny is shattered by social reprisals. The book was published in 1893 in 200 copies by Leonard Smithers who praised it as being "the most powerful and cleverly written erotic romance which has appeared in the English language" during that era". Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) is a central figure in aesthetic writing. Wilde was a poet, fiction writer, essayist and editor. Oscar Wilde is often seen as a homosexual icon although as many men of his day he was also a husband and father. Wilde''s life ended at odds with Victorian morals that surrounded him. He died in exile.

A collection of five short stories for children, written by Oscar Wilde and first published in May 1888. The stories are; The Happy Prince; The Nightingale And The Rose; The Selfish Giant; The Devoted Friend; and, The Remarkable Rocket.

The Happy Prince and Other Tales - Oscar Wilde The happy prince is a contemporary fairytale whose plot is surreal and it is placed into a modern society with real problems. Oscar Wild tried to state in a simple way the virtues and flaws of a person in all of his fairy tales and tried to criticize the society which is insensible. The main character knew only about nice things and after that, he decided to open his lead heart to everyone in need. When he helped them he didn''t regret about the decorations taken down from him and he keeps on doing noble things with the help of a swallow. The swallow was the proof that everyone can do selfless things even though they would maybe be risking their lives. His love and devotion were rewarded with an eternal life. In the fairytale, we can see the prince and the swallow who try to help the ones in need and make them happy while on the other side we can see the powerful people in important positions who do not want to see what is going on in the world. They only see themselves and their goal in life. Oscar Wild set up a principle of selfishness and selflessness and he took the story to its top when God helped the main heroes of the story. The language in which the fairytale was written is simple even though every single word is wisely picked. Oscar Wild is the one leading the storytelling and introducing the readers into the plot. The whole fairytale is filled with hidden messages and because of that, The happy prince is a book you should read with a lot of attention.

This eBook features the unabridged text of ‘The Happy Prince and Other Tales’ from the bestselling edition of ‘The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde’. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. The Delphi Classics edition of Wilde includes original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of the author, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily. eBook features: * The complete unabridged text of ‘The Happy Prince and Other Tales’ * Beautifully illustrated with images related to Wilde’s works * Individual contents table, allowing easy navigation around the eBook * Excellent formatting of the textPlease visit www.delphiclassics.com to learn more about our wide range of titles

The Importance of Being Earnest was popular upon its debut in 1895. It was not until the twentieth century that Wilde''s work was once again recognized both for its literary worth and comedic genius, and subsequently The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted many times for film and theatre, most recently in the 2002 film starring Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon, and Dame Judy Dench.

The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James''s Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious person� to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play''s major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Contemporary reviews all praised the play''s humour, though some were cautious about its explicit lack of social messages, while others foresaw the modern consensus that it was the culmination of Wilde''s artistic career so far. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde''s most enduringly popular play. The successful opening night marked the climax of Wilde''s career but also heralded his downfall. The Marquess of Queensberry, whose son Lord Alfred Douglas was Wilde''s lover, planned to present the writer with a bouquet of rotten vegetables and disrupt the show. Wilde was tipped off and Queensberry was refused admission. Soon afterwards their feud came to a climax in court, where Wilde''s homosexual double life was revealed to the Victorian public and he was eventually sentenced to imprisonment. His notoriety caused the play, despite its early success, to be closed after 86 performances. After his release, he published the play from exile in Paris, but he wrote no further comic or dramatic work.

How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Illustrated About Happy Prince And Other Tales by Oscar Wilde Happy Prince and Other Tales is a collection of stories for children by Oscar Wilde first published in May 1888. It contains five stories: "The Happy Prince", "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Selfish Giant", "The Devoted Friend", and "The Remarkable Rocket".n a town where a lot of poor people suffer, a swallow who was left behind after his flock flew off to Egypt for the winter meets the statue of the late "Happy Prince", who in reality has never experienced true happiness. Viewing various scenes of people suffering in poverty from his tall monument, the Happy Prince asks the swallow to take the ruby from his hilt, the sapphires from his eyes, and the golden leaf covering his body to give to the poor. As the winter comes and the Happy Prince is stripped of all of his beauty, his lead heart breaks when the swallow dies as a result of his selfless deeds and severe cold. The statue is then torn down and melted leaving behind the broken heart and the dead swallow. These are taken up to heaven by an angel that has deemed them the two most precious things in the city by God, so they may live forever in his city of gold and garden of paradise.

The Picture of Dorian GrayWritten in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde''s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author''s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray''s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel''s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, "a terrible moral in Dorian Gray." Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde''s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray''s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages, perhaps.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is an 1891 philosophical novel by Irish writer and playwright Oscar Wilde. First published as a serial story in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott''s Monthly Magazine, the editors feared the story was indecent, and without Wilde''s knowledge, deleted five hundred words before publication. Despite that censorship, The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers, some of whom said that Oscar Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding the public morality. In response, Wilde aggressively defended his novel and art in correspondence with the British press. Wilde revised and expanded the magazine edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) for publication as a novel; the book edition (1891) featured an aphoristic preface -- an apologia about the art of the novel and the reader. The content, style, and presentation of the preface made it famous in its own literary right, as social and cultural criticism. In April 1891, the editorial house Ward, Lock and Company published the revised version of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The Importance of Being Earnest was popular upon its debut in 1895. It was not until the twentieth century that Wilde''s work was once again recognized both for its literary worth and comedic genius, and subsequently The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted many times for film and theatre, most recently in the 2002 film starring Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon, and Dame Judy Dench.

Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde''s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author''s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray''s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel''s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, "a terrible moral in Dorian Gray." Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde''s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray''s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be-in other ages, perhaps.""But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face.""The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful."

Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde''s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author''s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray''s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel''s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, "a terrible moral in Dorian Gray." Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde''s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray''s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages, perhaps.

The Happy Prince and Other Tales (sometimes called The Happy Prince and Other Stories) is a collection of stories for children by Oscar Wilde first published in May 1888. It contains five stories: "The Happy Prince", "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Selfish Giant", "The Devoted Friend", and "The Remarkable Rocket".

In a town full of suffering poor people, a swallow who was left behind after his flock flew off to Egypt for the winter meets the statue of the late "Happy Prince", who in reality has never experienced true sorrow, for he lived in a palace where sorrow was not allowed to enter.Genre: Fiction

This lighthearted play tells the farcical tale of Jack Worthing and Algernon Montcrieff--two men who falsely claim to be named Ernest when they fall in love with two women whose affections are illogically but irrevocably tied to the name.The Importance of Being Earnest was popular upon its debut in 1895. It was not until the twentieth century that Wilde''s work was once again recognized both for its literary worth and comedic genius, and subsequently The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted many times for film and theatre, most recently in the 2002 film starring Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon, and Dame Judy Dench.

The Picture of Dorian GrayWritten in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde''s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author''s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray''s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel''s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, "a terrible moral in Dorian Gray." Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde''s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray''s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages, perhaps.

This lighthearted play tells the farcical tale of Jack Worthing and Algernon Montcrieff--two men who falsely claim to be named Ernest when they fall in love with two women whose affections are illogically but irrevocably tied to the name.The Importance of Being Earnest was popular upon its debut in 1895. It was not until the twentieth century that Wilde''s work was once again recognized both for its literary worth and comedic genius, and subsequently The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted many times for film and theatre, most recently in the 2002 film starring Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon, and Dame Judy Dench.

The Picture of Dorian GrayWritten in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde''s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author''s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray''s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel''s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, "a terrible moral in Dorian Gray." Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde''s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray''s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages, perhaps.

The Picture of Dorian GrayWritten in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde''s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author''s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray''s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it first appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel''s corrupting influence, he responded that there is, in fact, "a terrible moral in Dorian Gray." Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde''s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray''s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, "Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages, perhaps.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic and philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first published complete in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott''s Monthly Magazine. Fearing the story was indecent, the magazine''s editor deleted roughly five hundred words before publication without Wilde''s knowledge. Despite that censorship, The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers, some of whom said that Oscar Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding public morality. In response, Wilde aggressively defended his novel and art in correspondence with the British press, although he personally made excisions of some of the most controversial material when revising and lengthening the story for book publication the following year.

The Importance of Being Earnest A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James''s Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play''s major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Some contemporary reviews praised the play''s humour and the culmination of Wilde''s artistic career, while others were cautious about its lack of social messages. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde''s most enduringly popular play.

This lighthearted play tells the farcical tale of Jack Worthing and Algernon Montcrieff--two men who falsely claim to be named Ernest when they fall in love with two women whose affections are illogically but irrevocably tied to the name.The Importance of Being Earnest was popular upon its debut in 1895, but the reputation of Oscar Wilde''s works declined when he was imprisoned for accusations of homosexual behaviour. It was not until the twentieth century that Wilde''s work was once again recognized both for its literary worth and comedic genius, and subsequently The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted many times for film and theatre, most recently in the 2002 film starring Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon, and Dame Judy Dench.

Here is Oscar Wilde''s most brilliant tour de force, a witty and buoyant comedy of manners that has delighted millions in countless productions since its first performance in London''s St. James'' Theatre on February 14, 1895. The Importance of Being Earnest is celebrated not only for the lighthearted ingenuity of its plot, but for its inspired dialogue, rich with scintillating epigrams still savored by all who enjoy artful conversation. From the play''s effervescent beginnings in Algernon Moncrieff''s London flat to its hilarious denouement in the drawing room of Jack Worthing''s country manor in Hertfordshire, this comic masterpiece keeps audiences breathlessly anticipating a new bon mot or a fresh twist of plot moment to moment.

This lighthearted play tells the farcical tale of Jack Worthing and Algernon Montcrieff--two men who falsely claim to be named Ernest when they fall in love with two women whose affections are illogically but irrevocably tied to the name.The Importance of Being Earnest was popular upon its debut in 1895, but the reputation of Oscar Wilde''s works declined when he was imprisoned for accusations of homosexual behaviour. It was not until the twentieth century that Wilde''s work was once again recognized both for its literary worth and comedic genius, and subsequently The Importance of Being Earnest has been adapted many times for film and theatre, most recently in the 2002 film starring Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon, and Dame Judy Dench.