title:The best of Oscar Wilde: Selected Plays and writings
By Oscar Wilde
Name of publishing house: Signet
Time of publication: 2012
Language: English
ISBN：9780451532220
Item size: 10.6 x 2.4 x 17.1 cm
Packing: simple
Pages: 448
Oscar Wilde, an English writer, dramatist and poet, is famous for his novels, fairy tales, plays and poems. His works are aesthetic and rich in profound philosophical thoughts, which have been widely spread.
This oneThe Best of Oscar Wilde: Selected Plays and WritingsIt contains five important plays by Wilde, includingSalomeSalome,The Importance of Being EarnestDont play gamesLady Windermere’s Fan
Mrs. Windermeres fanA Woman of No ImportanceThe insignificant woman andAn Ideal Husband
The ideal husband。 In addition, this book also contains some important literary reviews published by Wilde, as well as two interviews about him. This book isSignet ClassicsThe English version is light and portable. Sylvan Barnet wrote the introduction and Maryland Hill wrote the postscript.
Oscar Wilde’s infamous wit, taste for scandal, and gift for revealing the hypocrisies of fashionable society are on display here in this collection of his finest plays. A genius both of and ahead of his time, he built his craft on the eternal questions of right and wrong—with pithy dialogue as fresh today as when it was written.
In addition to Wilde’s five major plays, this Signet Classics edition contains:
•Two interviews with the playwright at the peak of his career, in which Wilde discusses his work—and his critics
•Some of his most brilliant critical writing, in which he discusses the nature of art in terms that anticipate much of today’s literary theory
•An appendix that restores valuable lines that appeared in the original text of The Importance of Being Earnest
With an Introduction by Sylvan Barnet
and a New Afterword by Marylu Hill
Review
“This collection... illustrates the full range of his interests and of his wit.”——Oxford Times
Oscar WildeOscar Wilde (1854 ~ 1900), born in Dublin, Ireland, is a famous writer, poet, dramatist, artist and advocate of aestheticism art movement. He entered Oxford University in 1874, was influenced by the aesthetic ideas of Walter Pater and John Ruskin, and was exposed to the works of Neo Hegelian philosophy, Darwins theory of evolution and pre Raphael school. Wilde got married in 1884 and gave birth to two children. In 1895, he was sentenced to prison for associating with his same-sex friend Lord Alfred Douglas. After his release in 1897, he went to Paris until he died of illness in Paris in 1900. He is a rare versatile writer with a collection of fairy tales such as the happy prince and other stories, a collection of poems such as the Sphinx, a novel such as the portrait of Dorian Gray, a drama such as no childrens play and Salome, as well as his prose self deep and several comment collections.
Oscar Wildewas born in Dublin, Ireland, on October 16, 1854. He was an outstanding student of classics at Trinity College, and, in 1874, entered Magdalen College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate Prize with his poem “Ravenna” (1878). An early leader of the “Aesthetic Movement,” which advanced the concept of “Art for Art’s Sake,” Wilde became a prominent personality in literary and social circles. His volume of fairy tales, The Happy Prince and Other Tales( 1888) was followed byThe Picture of Dorian Gray(1891) andThe House of Pomegranates(1892). However, it was not until his playLady Windermere’s Fan (1892) was presented to the public that he became widely famous. A Woman of No Importance(1893) andThe Importance of Being Earnest(1895) confirmed his stature as a dramatist. In 1895 he brought libel action against the Marquis of Queensbury; revelations at the trial about his relationships led to his being sentenced under the Criminal Law Amendment for homosexual acts. Upon his release in 1897, he settled on the Continent, where he wrote his most powerful and enduring poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” (1898). Oscar Wilde died in Paris on November 30, 1900.
Sylvan Barnet, who received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, is professor of English at Tufts University, specializing in English drama. He is the General Editor of the Signet Classic Shakespeare series and the author or coauthor of many books, including Types of Drama, 8th edition, andAn Introduction to Literature, 13th edition.
Marylu Hill is the Director of the Center for Liberal Education at Villanova University. She is the author of Mothering Modernity: Feminism, Modernism, and the Maternal Muse (1999), and coeditor (with Paul Kerry) of Thomas Carlyle Resartus(2010). She has published numerous essays on Victorian subjects, including Thomas Carlyle, Christina Rossetti, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. Her current book project is on Oscar Wilde and Platonic dialogue.
Introduction
CHRONOLOGY
Plays
Salome
Lady Windermere’s Fan
A Woman of No Importance
An Ideal Husband
The Importance of Being Earnest
“The Gribsby Episode” in The Importance of Being Earnest
Literary Criticism
Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray
Letters to the Editor of the Scots Review
From the Decay of Lying
From the Critic as Artist
An Ideal Husband at the Haymarket Theatre: A Talk with Mr. Oscar Wilde
Mr. Oscar Wilde on Mr. Oscar Wilde
Afterword
Suggested References
