Works of Oscar Wilde [Hardcover]

Oscar Wilde (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2000 | ISBN-10: 0004105419 | ISBN-13: 978-0004105413 | Edition: New Ed

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1909. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... THE FISHERMAN AND HIS SOUL. Every evening the young Fisherman went out upon the sea, and threw his nets into the water. When the wind blew from the land he caught nothing, or but little at best, for it was a bitter and black-winged wind, and rough waves ross up to meet it. But when the wind blew to the shore, the fish came in from the deep, and swam into the meshes of his nets, and he took them to the market-place and sold them. Every evening he went out upon the sea, and one evening the net was so heavy that hardly could he draw it into the boat. And he laughed, and said to himself, "Surely I have caught all the fish that swim, or snared some dull monster that will be a marvel to men, or some thing of horror that the great Queen will desire," and putting forth all his strength, he tugged at the coarse ropes till, like lines of blue enamel round a vase of bronze, the long veins rose up on his arms. He tugged at the thin ropes, and nearer and nearer came the circle of flat corks, and the net rose at last to the top of the water. But no fish at all was in it, nor any monster or thing of horror, but only a little Mermaid lying fast asleep. Her hair was as a wet fleece of gold, and each separate hair as a thread of fine gold in a cup of glass. Her body was as white ivory, and her tail was of silver and pearl. Silver and pearl was her tail, and the green weeds of the sea coiled round it; and like sea-shells were her ears, and her lips were like sea-coral. The cold waves dashed over her cold breasts, and the salt glistened upon her eyelids. So beautiful was she that when the young Fisherman saw her he was filled with wonder, and he put out his hand and drew the net close to him, and leaning over the side he clasped her in his arms. And when he touched her, she gave a ...

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1200 pages
• Publisher: William Collins Pub; New Ed edition (January 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0004105419
• ISBN-13: 978-0004105413
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 2.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,033,843 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CONVENIENT, COMPREHENSIVE AND AUTHORITATIVE COLLECTION OF THE WORKS OF OSCAR WILDE WITH INTRODUCTION ETC. BY HIS LEARNED SON, November 28, 2007

By 

C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde (Paperback)

For those in any need of Wilde at elbow (and who among us is not?), this thick brick of a book lends itself to easy reference, if, despite its format appelation, far too large a book for the vast majority of pockets.

First collected in 1948 and published in Britian by Collins, I have received the 1989 reprint, a rather substantial tome indeed which presents fairly bare bones the majority of Wilde's work, with some letters. In fact the only thing missing from this "Complete" collection of his writings may be some of his private letters, etc., which have been in fact published elsewhere, as in, for example, The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde which is edited by his grandson Merlin.

Wilde's own son Vyvyan wrote the scholarly biography and academic analysis of his own father's landmark and unequalled work. Anyone already familiar with the life of Oscar Wilde knows how deeply touching this in itself must be. Wilde deeply loved his two sons, and especially his wife, and suffered greatly their loss due to his unjust and cruel and unusual imprisonment on false charges, as witnessed here in his writings Reading Gaol and most explicitly in De Profundis, which might also be read in The Soul of Man & Prison Writings. De Profundis in this present collection was first published here by Collins completely and most authoritatively.

The nearly cold scholarliness with which this son of Wilde presents the clear facts of his father's life astounds one, and even pains one who knows the fullness of the story, or reads it here for the first time. Please see as well the excellent account in Son of Oscar Wilde for a more complete understanding of this deeply slandered and actually unknown creator of modern literary style and forms, which we have so lost in this post-modern world. We do well here to study carefully his art in the fullness of its publication, and to read the beauty of his own son's biography. A highly recommendable collection and excellent, well balanced introductory biography, with an equally excellent adjunct chronology and bibliography for further readings and resources.

Read once more Dorian Gray, the novel, and the associated short stories. Themoral tales and fairy tales are here presented, as well as the plays. The Importance of Being Earnest humorously reveals the closet lifestyle of the aristocracy, and the superficiality, unfortunately and necessarily here unannotated. Lady Windemere's Fan with lesser lightness reveals the fatal hypocrisy and fatality of upper crust British society. An Ideal Husband with some degree of humor and intrigue reveals the same, with the a revelation of the stock swindles which were then and which in Halliburton remain the basis for many a great fame and fortune. These three are fairly well represented by the BBC in The Oscar Wilde Collection (The Importance of Being Earnest / The Picture of Dorian Gray / An Ideal Husband / Lady Windermere's Fan).

This selection of plays continues of course with all of them, including a Woman of No Importance and the standard (and very poor) English translation of Wilde's prophetic play written in French for Sarah Bernhardt Salome, which again reveals the corruption and vice of the ruling classes and their destruction of true religion.

His Poems in Prose are included and various essays and letters including the important De Profundis mentioned above (which he proposed entitling in Latin for his prison and chains), as well as the earlier serio-comic The decay of Lying, A Few Maxims for the INstruction of the Over-Educated, and Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young. One wonders the seriousness of his intent in writing The Portrait of Mr. W.H. as the object of Shakespeare's sonnets, and we read with interwst his Soul of Man under Socialism and his The Critic as Artist, etc.

HIs poetry is well and completely represented, including this touching dedication of a book of his poems to his dearly and well beloved wife:

To My Wife
I can write no stately proem
As a prelude to my lay;
from a poet to a poem
I would dare to say.

For if of these fallen petals
One of you seem fair
Love will waft it till it settles
On your hair.

And when the wind and winter harden
All the loveles land,
It will whisper of the garden
You will understand.

Wilde though dying young due to his imprisonment and exile and loss of family, survived his wife who suffered as cruelly English unmerciful justice, and this loving couple passed untold and untellable pain, here only hinted at by his son, and by his writing which hopefully will aid us to glimpse the deep and famously paradoxical truth of Mr. Oscar Wilde.

Read the book.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars complete text but no extras, February 8, 2011

By 

tracy "tracy" (Washington DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Kindle Edition)

Kindle version: there is a table of contents but it doesn't show up in the menu, you have to page through to find it. All the writings are there but noextras-- no background info on the writer or the individual stories.

5.0 out of 5 stars Complete Works for a buck? Heck yeah., February 5, 2012

By 

Pseudonymic - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Kindle Edition)

Kindle Edition: I love Oscar Wilde, and when I love an author I try to read everything they've ever written. This collection made that very easy! All his plays, essays, etc. are in one volume. I purchased the Kindle version of this book, which was only a dollar. (Only a dollar for everything Wilde wrote? YAY!) That put the collection well within my meager student budget. I didn't miss the excluded biographical information; I think you get to know the author best through his works, and here they are in an easy-to-peruse format.