Customer Reviews

Oscar Wilde - The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics)

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I have this title in the hardcover edition of 1989, with it's lovely green jacket. The Introduction is excellent and informed. I am fascinated at the wee selection of poems -- there are three only, and two of them are in the decadent vein in which Oscar penned his only novel and "Salome." I have just this moment finished listening to Stephen Fry's reading of "The Ballad of Reading Goal" on the Dove Audio 4-cassette box that includes the poem and the entire "De Profundis;" & I must disagree with Quentin Crisp, who called the ballad "bad poetry." It is uneven, yet it still retains much power, and some lines are extremely effective. "The Harlot's House" is probably my favourite poem, and is a work that continues to inspire my own fictive work. It is deliciously macabre. I return to this poet time and time again. Some find his life and his tragedy more interesting than his Work, but now in the twilight of my life I return more often to the poems and plays and essays than to the biographies. Peace unto his Shade.