This collection brings together some of this much-loved writer's prose work. In it, Oscar Wilde touches on a wide range of topics as only he can. He discusses the decay of lying, the critic as artist, and the truth of masks. He provides criticism of productions of works of Shakespeare and other theatrical concerns, such as stage scenery, stage morals, and "plays that are meant to be read, not to be acted." He also devotes his attention to women's issues, such as novels and stories written by women and women's achievements. Taken together, readers will discover the incisive wit and unique observations for which Wilde was renowned. OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900) was a celebrated Irish-born playwright, short story writer, poet, and personality in Victorian London. He is best known for his involvement in the aesthetic movement and his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well as his many plays, such as Lady Windermere's Fan, The Importance of Being Ernest, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and Salomé. During his imprisonment for gross indecency, he wrote De Profundis, and later, The Ballad of Reading Gao.
Oscar Fingall O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford where, a disciple of Pater, he founded an aesthetic cult. In 1884 he married Constance Lloyd, and his two sons were born in 1885 and 1886.
His novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and social comedies Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), established his reputation. In 1895, following his libel action against the Marquess of Queesberry, Wilde was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for homosexual conduct, as a result of which he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), and his confessional letter De Profundis (1905). On his release from prison in 1897 he lived in obscurity in Europe, and died in Paris in 1900.
