num_pages: 672
description: A renowned eccentric dandy and man-about-town Oscar Wilde was foremost a dazzling wit and dramatic genius whose plays poems essays and fiction contain some of the most frequently quoted quips and passages in the English language. This volume features a wide selection of Wildes literary output including the comic masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest an immensely popular play filled with satiric epigrams that mercilessly expose Victorian hypocrisy; The Portrait of Mr. W. H. a story proposing that Shakespeares sonnets were inspired by the poets love for a young man; The House of Pomegranates the authors collection of fairy tales; lectures Wilde delivered first in the United States where he exhorted his audiences to love beauty and art and then in England where he presented his impressions of America; his two major literary-theoretical works The Decay of Lying and The Critic as Artist; and a selection of verse including his great poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol in which Wilde famously declared that each man kills the thing he loves. A testament to Wildes incredible versatility this collection displays his legendary wit brilliant use of language and penetrating insight into the human condition.
language: English
title: The Collected Oscar Wilde
publisher: Barnes & Noble