Customer Reviews

The Canterville Ghost and Other Stories (Dover Thrift Editions)

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Oscar Wilde, in this Canterville Ghost story, reaches a tremendous level of humor and caustic social vision. The humor comes from the fact that the American family that buys the ghost along with the mansion takes him as being real and apply to him all the possible modern techniques to improve his life and make his sojourn in the mansion untroublesome for the new inhabitants. It is also funny because two young boys play all kinds of tricks to the ghost and there is no end in their creativity. But the story is also a little bit sad because it reveals the ghost has become a ghost when the brothers of his wife, whom he had assassinated, took vengeance and starved him to death. It also reveals that the ghost can be redeemed if love comes along and frees him of his misery and fate. And this love will come from the young daughter of the American family. She will naively open her heart to the suffering of the ghost and thus free him of his lot. This also shows how the attitude of the English owner of the mansion are just not interested in the suffering of the ghost, whereas the Americans will take this ghost seriously and will try to understand him and give him solace. Beyond the humor of the tale there is the tremendous belief that suffering can be solved.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan

Oscar was a clever boy. Too clever by half, as they say. The two longer stories in this Dover Thrift - "The Canterville Ghost" and "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" - are scathingly funny, with well-turned sarcasms in every second phrase. The former is not so much a tale of the macabre as a satire of American pragmatism jousting with British maudlin antiquarianism. The latter is an exercise in "reduction to absurdity' applied to the philosophical humbug of Fate. Nobody ever recognized Humbug as readily as Oscar Wilde. Nobody ever penetrated the Ark of Human Vanity more sacrilegiously, only to discover the mummy of a fool. But make no mistake! Wilde is utterly serious in his scorn for humanity. Had he been just a little less clever - a little less convinced of the futility of serious endeavors - he might have been the greatest statesman of his time. Solve any of mankind's grievous cares? How utterly boring!

Here's a bonus for readers with an appreciation for the Wildest ironies. The two previous amazon reviewers of the title story - The Canterville Ghost - report that they found it wondrously uplifting and replete with spiritual consolation.

This is a short book with a few short stories. The Canterville Ghost is a great classic short story, and with the Dover Thrift edition pricing, well worth the money. It's not a scary story, but very imaginative, surprising, and humorous. You will surely enjoy the story. Compared to many classics, the story is very readable. The other stories are also interesting.

This book was a great quick read and suprised me. Oscar Wilde's biography and what is written is this book are contrary. It has spiritual stories that blessed me by reading them. If you like to think or like a book to make you think, this is it. Wonderful stories by a good man.