Oscar Wilde Books

This play is based on the biblical story of the death of John the Baptist. Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Judea, is married to his brother's wife Herodias, but finds himself lusting after her daughter Salome. Overcome with wine and passion for Salome, he offers her anything to dance the dance of seven veils for him. Little does he know what price she will exact.

Oscar Wilde first published this book in Paris in 1891 in an attempt to bypass Victorian censorship. In 1894 it was translated into English, and published with a series of illustrations created by the incomparable Aubrey Beardsley. This book was quite shocking to Victorian Britain.

This book surprised me with its power. While not erotic in the modern, XXX sense, it is a compelling tale of decadence. The characters give no thought to anything but their own pleasure, and the worst of them all is the young (and far from innocent) Salome. Beardsley's stark, black-and-white pictures add to the tale, complementing Wilde's text with a disturbing, passionless sexuality. This is a fascinating story, and one that I recommend to any adult.

This affordably-priced edition of Salome contains all the Aubrey Beardsley drawings and is the English translation undertaken by Lord Alfred Douglas of Wilde's most brilliant tale of passion, which was originally written in French to avoid (unsuccessfully) Victorian censorship. Salome is a simple tale of complex passion. Wilde's heroine bears no resemblance to her biblical origin. His Salome is no mere instrument of Herodias, but a dangerous and passionate young woman whose thwarted affections for John the Baptist lead to a disasterous climax for all persons involved. Wilde's script is a brilliant look at deep-rooted desires and the dangers of obsession. This edition of the play is a must for anyone building their own theatrical library.

I found this book to a very quick and interesting read. Salome is both loved and feared by men. She uses her deadly seductive power to get anything she wants, almost.
The price of the book is so cheap how can you resist not buying it.

Oscar Wilde touches here a fundamental subject in Christian lore : Salome and John the Baptist, and through them Jesus and the prophesy that he is the Messiah. It would be a perfect subject for an opera because the events are contained in too short a time and the feelings and motivations are too simple and intensely concentrated for a dramaruc play. Salome asks for John's head out of spite because she could not possess him, because he refused to acknowledge her, and also because she knows this will mean the downfall of her step-father, the killer of her own father, and the incestuous husband of her mother. So vengeance is her second motivation. Those motivations are too simple to build up the tragical force of a play, but they are so intense that they could have inspired the most dramatic and powerful music. Oscar Wilde's language is beautiful in many ways but this beauty does not give any complexity to the simpleness of the emotions and motivations. This beautiful language could have become the carrier of a beautiful music. Actually we can hear the music of a Scarlatti, or of a Purcell behind the words, maybe even a Haendel. But as a play it is a little bit flat and without enough depth to build a beautiful performance. As a matter of fact the centrepiece of the play, the dance of the seven veils, is not a dramatic event but a visual and musical event. And we cannot in anyway escape the recollection of the fantastic little black and white film by Clive Barker on the subject. Salome is worth more than just a dramatic play. She can only find her full strength when music and dancing come into the picture, when it is fully visual and musical.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Perpignan

The Ballad of Reading Gaol is truly a fascinating poem. Wilde's valorization of the tragic murderer, "...each man kills the thing he loves... the kindest use a knife because the dead so soon grow cold", provides a poignant commentary on the transience of love. However, this book is marred by what seem to be terrible typos: "But their were those amongst us all..." "And knew that, had each go his due..." "Mad mourners of a corse!" I haven't read any of the other versions of this poem, and can't tell you if they're better, but for the extra money this costs, I expected more from the publisher. Five stars for the poem, but only one for the presentation because of its errors.

As a student of Wilde's life and works, I find this is essential reading. Who needs Shakespeare to outline tradgey? Wilde was imprisoned after a second trial (the first was a no decision). He was confined in the horrid English jails for two years. "The wretched prisoner is then left a prey to the most weakening, depressing and humiliating malady.... punished with the greatest severity and brutality. Each and all these things I had to transform into a spirtual experience." The ballad

outlines the horrors he and others endure who are prisoners of conscience. A terrible tragedy.

Essential for any lover of great poetry, and certainly for any fan of Oscar Wilde is his great poem, "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." Scarcely the only thing he wrote after his return from his notorious 2-year prison term, The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a moving and tragic account of one man's suffering. One could go on and on - writing hundreds of pages in essay form - about the indignities and injustices of prison life, but this goes toward saying it much better than any ivory tower intellectual argument ever could. Wilde, winner of the infamous Newdigate Prize For Poetry at Oxford University, had long been an immaculate poet - an a born writer - but he practically anandoned the form after his marriage and the start of his career as a playwright in the early 1890's (aside from that strange amalgram of a poem, The Sphinx.) And yet, this is almost exclusively the only thing Wilde wrote after his release before his untimely death in 1900. Thankfully, the great artist went out with a bang. The Ballad fuses some of the best and clearest writing I have ever read in the English language with a poetic sensibility and a true and tragic sense of real suffering, thereby creating one of the great poems of all-time.

Many anthologies of Wilde's writings are available, and perhaps buying a book that simply includes this lone poem is questionable. I definitely suggest that you go for a Complete Works if you are new to the author; however, if you'd like a travel-worthy copy of certain smaller works - such as this poem - then editions such as this will serve you well. Besides, this edition has as well those beautiful paintings to go along with it - something I'm sure Oscar himself would've loved.

This book is an absolue delight, a most wonderful portrait of one of the most interesting figures in history. When people think of Oscar Wilde, they think scandals and love affairs. Wilde has most certainly been made into a larger than life character. This book humanizes Wilde, gives him a chance to speak for himself, to show what he really was. His business corrospondnce, letters to his children, these simple writings from his everyday life show a sign of Wilde that people do not think about. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

As one of those people who has always found Oscar Wilde an interesting and inscrutable character I had great expectations and an insatiable desire to finally peruse the epistolary output of this remarkable man. Sadly and I will add through no fault of the editors of this opus this compilation will probably leave most readers still searching for insight. Many of these letters (if not the majority) deal with very mundane issues (e.g. business arrangements,inquiries to publishers, very conventional thank you notes and in the post-gaol notes a good number of entreaties for money). Of course this book does contain De Profundis which does present some fascinating insights about the way his mind was functioning during his incarceration as well as the great indignities attendant with this. I would still recommend this to the diehard Wilde fanatic but to the novice would recommend a good standard biography (Ellman's for example).

Though Mr. Wilde is indeed dead, his memory and writing is still with us. With this new book, "THE COMPLETE LETTERS OF OSCAR WILDE" you get a total new insiders glance on Oscar Wilde and his life. If you are a fan of Oscar Wilde, merely just heard of him, or a fan of literature, this is a must-have!

Ms. Blanchards book was meticulously reasearched and presented. It was an innovative approach to the years after the Civil War exposing a counter culture that I was astonished to discover.But she did discover it and unknown and unheralded women who make this worthy book even more fascinating.

Blanchard's book is about a whole counterculture, not usually suspected of flourishing in the last decades of the 20th century in the America of Carnegie and Bryan. Blanchard not only proves beyond doubt that it was there, like the contemporary movements in England and France, but also that it was rich, embracing all the arts, both sexes, and every expression of gender, not to mention fashion, popular culture and arts usually labelled "domestic." Designed with an equally rich iconography, its text laid out together with contemporary pictures, "Oscar Wilde's America" is a model of cultural and intellectual history -- which might confuse poststructuralists and anti-poststructuralists alike.

Reading this book has been an astonishing experience . . . Never have I been so informed by the substantiality of the aesthetic ideas of Oscar Wilde in an American context I thought I knew. Who, after all, has ever connected Wilde with William Dean Howells and Henry Adams? Nor was I aware of the impact of aestheticism on the thoughts and innovative behavior of middle class women during the so-called Gilded Age. Henceforth that catch phrase will always betoken a deeper or at least a double meaning. Blanchard's subtle yet precise writing, drawn from an enormous range of fresh and original materials, exhibits the aestheticism Wilde so powerfully preached.

Robbie Ross: Oscar Wilde's Last True Friend by Jonathan Fryer is the engrossing story of Oscar Wilde's closest and most loyal friend (excluding of course "Bosie" Douglas who was a more intimate if untrue friend). As well as examining the life of this minor turn of the century writer, Fryer provides insights into the lives of English (and English-Irish) gay men of the comfortable classes in late Victorian and Edwardian society. The story of the Ross/Wilde friendship is very touching and the retelling of Oscar Wilde's odyssey is an engaging one. The years following Wilde's death saw the pathologically immature "Bosie" Douglas descend from selfish lover to vicious loather. His turn to sexual conventionality and his adoption of a shockingly hateful crusade against Ross is a chilling reflection on personal perfidy and the ugliness of social reaction. Douglas was joined in his crusade by horrific anti-gay bigots, and their mad-dog litigation against Ross and others certainly contributed to Ross's ill health and early death at 49.

Ross had a mysogynistic side, which we learn about only in passing: his establishment of a modest scholarship for art students was restricted to males, and Fryer lamely posits an excuse. The retelling of this episode here, and the biography's almost complete absence of comments on Ross's political opinions, leads one to wonder about the broader context of Ross's life that is still left to tell, not that this minor figure will ever get another biography. We get only provocative snippets of another life. We're told that Ross felt very strongly about the intense events in Ireland at the time, but are never informed what these feelings are!

Ross' mentoring of Wilde's sons and his befriending of the emerging young British poets of the WWI era are also described. For the reader who desires an interesting look at this period in British cultural life, and especially for those not yet familiar with Wilde's story or who seek another angle's view of it, this readable book is highly recommended. Those who wish to learn about Ross and Wilde in a wider social context will find it unsatisfying.

Oscar Wilde was author of some of the merriest jests and plays in the English language and subject of one of the saddest banishments and deaths in literature. Oscar was unfortunate in his enemies, and in many of his friends, but he was very fortunate in the friendship of Robbie Ross, a friendship that displayed itself throughout Oscar's successes and worst trials, and for long after Oscar's death. It cannot be said that Ross was a particularly important figure, but as a friend to Wilde, he influenced Oscar in many good ways. Ross is a footnote, but he was an exceptionally good friend and a good man, and now he has a good biography, _Robbie Ross: Oscar Wilde's Devoted Friend_ (Carroll and Graf Publishers) by Jonathan Fryer. It will be a welcome volume for any interested in Oscar's life.

As a youth, Robbie met Oscar and introduced him to homosexual lovemaking. Oscar took other lovers afterward, as did Robbie, and Robbie had not the slightest jealousy about Oscar's affections. Throughout Oscar's life, Robbie was there to give him help and good counsel, although Oscar sadly didn't often take his advice. When Oscar wound up in jail, Robbie came back, and made himself indispensable with visits to the jail and with taking up collections from the friends Oscar still had. Robbie received the deserved admiration of Oscar's friends, and of Oscar: "When I see you, I shall be quite happy, indeed I am happy now to think I have such wonderful friendship shown to me," and "Your love, your generosity, your care of me in prison and out of prison are the most lovely things in my life."

Robbie oversaw the publication of "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" and of _De Profundis_. He was on hand at Oscar's death, and oversaw the temporary internment and the arrangement of the final resting place in Paris. He befriended Oscar's sons, who from him heard the first kind things about their father since they were taken from him and had their name changed. He was determined that Oscar's work would be read and performed again, and that the sons would get the benefit; his efforts to remove Oscar's estate from bankruptcy were eventually successful. He edited the twelve volume set of Oscar's collected works, and the books were a commercial and critical success.

There is much in this affectionate biography about Robbie's writing career, his running an art gallery, or his becoming an influential art critic. He would be forgotten, however, if it were not for his devotion to Oscar, and it is quite possible that we would remember Oscar less vividly if Robbie had not performed him such faithful service. This book is a fit testimony to that service. He was faithful to Oscar's memory until his own end, and when that end came, his ashes were eventually placed, fittingly and sweetly, in the cavity he had requested in the design of Oscar's monument.

Robbie Ross most certainly deserves acknowledgement for demonstrating true friendship to Oscar Wilde when Wilde was in the midst of deepest disgrace and in direst need.
As always with biography there is some special pleading in this book.
It is not accurate to say that Robbie Ross spoke "the first kind words about their father the boys had ever heard." Vvyan Holland, Wilde's youngest son, would disagree with that statement. Vyvan says in his autobiography that Constance, Wilde's wife, said "Don't hate you father. He hated his and that was much of the problem." Also, in fairness to Constance (who seems to get short shrift from the biographers of the men in the scandal) -- her brothers took over. They insisted that she divorce Oscar Wilde and change her name and that of the sons. At that time WOMEN HAD NO RIGHTS and Constance Wilde (who became Constance Holland) had no choice in this decision. Literally, even if she HAD had money she would not have had control of it. That is not the way English law worked. While we are giving Robbie Ross much deserved credit, let's be accurate in re Constance as well.

Beardsley's illustrations for Wilde's "Salome" are quite well known. I enjoyed seeing them, in unexpurgated forms, in the context of the script they were meant to adorn. I think I can see wonderful possibilities in staging that play, where modern sensibilities could show and accept what England of 1892 could not. Even so, I found the script itself somewhat repetitive, with more in it to startle than to explain. Perhaps there's a knack to reading this script that I haven't mastered.

The second piece, Beardsley's own "Under the Hill," is a mortal's visit to the kingdom of Venus, the goddess of love. Although the story has revolting moments, it's easy to become drugged by the thick perfume of his flowery language. The elegant circumlocutions sometimes narrate, other times only suggest effete debauches. The brief story sustains an oddly split mood, comical for its excesses and affectations, darkly fascinating for its content. Beardsley's life was cut short in his 20s, leaving this story unfinished. I have to wonder whether I would actually have wanted to read its entirety.

Neither story will suit polite company, nor was meant to. Both, however, give little insights into artists that are still appreciated today. These particular insights may not be 'fun' or 'likeable', but add real information to any view of Wilde or Beardsley.

//wiredweird

Oscar Wilde's SALOME is perfect for the phrase "neglected masterpiece". It is exciting and gorgeously written. There is also a constant feeling of vitality. We are thrown into the middle of a tense situation and (despite the jewel-like language) no time is wasted in getting to the tragic conclusion. Perhaps the only flaw is the lack of well drawn characters but this is rarely felt due to the beauty and strength of Wilde's writing. Many would find SALOME anti-Christian. This wouldn't bother me at all but if you read carefully you'll notice all the offensive elements are in the pagan characters. John the Baptist stays virtuous. I'd love to see a good performance. Aubrey Beardsley's UNDER THE HILL is interesting but never very memorable. The illustrations are great but I'm not sure they are all in the right place. This book is a must have for all lovers of aestheticism and SALOME should be read by all.

Along with his superb illustrations for Malory's Morte Darthur, still very much in the style of Burne-Jones, Salome is surely Beardsley's masterpiece. Stylized to an extreme degree, his illustrations also manage to be both erotic and strangely touching. He is more than a cold stylist, but a master of the extreme emotions which lie behind Wilde's strange text. This, though repreatedly dismissed as absurd, has turned out to be one of the toughest works of the late nineteenth century decadent movement. Although rarely performed as a play, it lives on as the libretto for Richard Strauss's great opera, a work that has continued to fascinate and horrify audiences for nearly a century. The unfinished fantasy Under the Hill is worth collecting too, and this economical volume is a bargain.

Up to this point I have been unfamiliar with Oscar Wilde's short stories, having only read The Importance of Being Earnest, which I absolutely loved. This book is an intriguing collection of delightful works that is not only entertaining, but thought-provoking too. As always, Wilde cleverly stashes plenty of wit and personality in his writing with a classic style claimed by him alone. I highly recommend this book, it is definitely worth the price.

This anthology collects Wilde's shorter and generally earlier writings. It's an eclectic mix (but what did you expect?), in a number of styles.

The first few pieces adopt a faux archaic language, lending a faux antiquity to these "fairy tales." In an anachronistic mix of styles, Wilde delivers talking animals and other cuteness as modern fairy tales demand - but an underlying chill, a memory of the adult horror that such stories had in the ages when only a glimmer of fire kept the night terrors at bay. One longish (25 page) story breaks up this section, the "Portrait of Mr. W. H." When that became tedious, I skipped ahead to the next writings in that classicoid style. BTW, P. Craig Russell has done graphic adaptations of some of these stories, and I recommend them highly

The book's next 60 pages, "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories," present four brief tales in which many readers will recognize Wilde's wiles. They are drawing-room comedies of manners. They're rhinestones - they sparkle and please, without offering or pretending to offer any profound value. If you liked "The Importance of Being Earnest" for that character, you'll like these for the same reason.

The book winds down with a few "Poems in Prose," epigrammatic stories of a page or two each. It must be a demanding literary form, compressing so much breadth of concept into so very few words. Wilde, of course, mastered it, as he proves here. It's a fitting finish, a tightly concentrated savory, to the end of this literary feast.

//wiredweird

People tend to remember Oscar Wilde for one, or two things, or both - his homosexuality and his cutting wit. His witticism is displayed mostly in his better known works such as "The importance of Being Earnest" in which one would find his established gems like "Never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that will tell one anything." Another of his well known work was his "De Profundis" a melodramatic letter written from his imprisonment after his disastrous defamation trial involving his homosexuality. Penguin Classic's "Complete Short Fiction" is a collection of short stories written with typical Wildean care-free abandon. But the stories, short and sweet, carry a sting. "The Devoted Friend" tells a charming tale with a moral, only for the reader to be told in the end that people don't like stories with a moral. This and other stories in the first part of the book are fairy tales that parents will enjoy the subtleties that Wilde injects into each story, and still find the stories simple enough to read to their children. Readers will enjoy the rest of the book, which consist of a mixture of tales, and some, like "Lord Arthur Saville's Crime", for the dashes of Wildean wit: "I do not work for money; I live entirely for my art." And do ghosts do when the people they haunt do not believe in ghosts? That's "The Canterville Ghost". The variety in this collection best exhibits the true heart of Oscar Wilde. It is a fine introduction to a newcomer to Wilde's literary work. "De profundis" tends to leave the reader drained; Importance of Being Earnest" may leave one with high expectations."Dorian Gray" might leave one exhilarated, exhausted, and scarred.

Oscar Wilde is a fantastic writer and person. In this book he devolops his thinking about the world so extrememly good, that he deveserves 5stars. I read a lot of plays by Wilde and some of his short stories and I can only come to one conclusion: This is the best writer ever with Shelley, Keats and Fitzgerald. You have got to love this one.

jeremy reed's "dorian" had me riveted from the first page to the last, and i read it all in one sitting. reed is the modern jk huysmans, and like that sickly but brilliant french author reed delights in mental escape from the banality of monotonous day to day routine and the mediocrity of daily existence. anyone who has decadent or anti social tendencies will immediately recognize reed as a fellow dreamer and inhabitant of perverse illusion. as in "chasing black rainbows" and "isidore", one experiences the unique and wonderful sensation of being propelled into a magical realm of imaginative reality and poetic madness. the author clearly relates to the outcasts of society and those who freely violate its repressive taboos and live on it's fringes, as the gangster/tranvestite character of Nadja (no doubt a veiled homage to Andre Breton's brilliant novel of the same name)does. "I've always been fascinated with the mad, the criminals, the outlaws of society" she says, and we can be sure that this is reed speaking, just as des esseintes was a mouthpiece for huysmans. this is a must read for anyone interested in surrealism, symbolism, decadence, and just plain weirdness. kudos to reed for another masterpiece of fantastic sympathy and 'convulsive beauty'.

Jeremy Reed is the kind of writer you take your time with. Although his writing is fluid and full of vivid pictures he is not rushed, and when you read this fascinating hypothetical sequel to Dorian Gray you shouldn't rush it either. As you may remember, at the end of Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, Dorian slashes his painting and dies, all of his sins now clearly etched into his face and body. Dorian, the sequel starts in Paris, several years later. Henry Wotton is now Dorian's lover, and Dorian is still young, beautiful and more depraved than ever. With a voracious appetite for beautiful boys, alcohol, drugs and oppulant clothing, he practices black magic and goes to s&m clubs. In Paris, he meets Rimbaud and Baudelaire, and finally Oscar Wilde a shadow of his former self since his release from jail. I genuinely enjoyed reading this book. It is totally original and full of intrigue. Jeremy Reed is an intellect first. I think this is why he succeeds so beautifully.

Es una historia sencilla pero eso no deja que sea magnifica y entretenida

Thi is the first time I start readinng a book and can't leave it since I finish it .If you have a couple of hours read it!!