The Complete Short Fiction

by Oscar Wilde, Ian Small (Editor), Ian Small (Introduction)

Overview

Fairy tales, ghost stories, detective fiction and comedies of manners - the stories collected in this volume made Oscar Wilde's name as a writer of fiction, showing breathtaking dexterity in a wide range of literary styles. Victorian moral justice is comically inverted in 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime' and 'The Canterville Ghost', and society's materialism comes under sharp, humorous criticism in 'The Model Millionaire', while 'The Happy Prince' and 'The Nightingale and the Rose' are hauntingly melancholic in their magical evocations of selfless love. These small masterpieces convey the brilliance of Wilde's vision, exploring complex moral issues through an elegant juxtaposition of wit and sentiment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141905686
Publisher:	Penguin UK
Publication date:	02/27/2003
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	1,036,894
File size:	408 KB

About the Author

Born in Ireland, Wilde (1854-1900) was educated in Dublin and Oxford and went on to become the leading exponent of aestheticism. His work includes plays, a novel, poetry and criticism. Imprisoned for homosexual acts, he died after his release in exile in Paris.
Ian Small is a reader in English Literature at the University of Birmingham.

Date of Birth:

October 16, 1854

Date of Death:

November 30, 1900

Place of Birth:

Dublin, Ireland

Place of Death:

Paris, France

Education:

The Royal School in Enniskillen, Dublin, 1864; Trinity College, Dublin, 1871; Magdalen College, Oxford, England, 1874

Editorial Reviews

Gr 7 Up Lovers of Oscar Wilde's stories will delight in this new illustrated version of The Canterville Ghost if the picture book format does not keep them from finding it. Wilde's story of an American family who moves into Canterville Chase and annoys a weary ghost with their lack of belief in him is a wry commentary on the ways of British nobility and of their hard-headed American cousins. Like many of Wilde's tales, this one is filled with sophisticated allusions to his social and political milieu, but ends as sentimental romance. Zwerger's wry pictures highlight this tone beautifully. Her toothless ghost is round and comical, as would suit a ghost whom no one fears, and her heroine, Virginia, is young and sweetly boyish. All of the illustrations are set against misty gray watercolor backgrounds except for the climactic scene, echoed on the front cover, in which the tiny huntsmen on the wallpaper call out to Virginia to ``Go Back.'' This will make a fine read-aloud for audiences of secondary students who are prepared to savor Wilde's ironic humor and Zwerger's delicate watercolors. Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie

School Library Journal

The second volume in a series of comic book adaptations of Wilde's tales [see BKL Ja 15 93 for previous volume] gives "The Young King" and "The Remarkable Rocket" the Marvel-DC treatment. In elaborate underground "comix" style, Russell reintroduces the tales with an accessible if nontraditional approach to picture-book illustration and better-than-average adaptations of the original texts. Whether you believe circulating comics in the library is appropriate or not, this full-color book won't stay on the shelf for long, and it may well attract readers to a genre they might not usually find appealing.

Janice Del Negro