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.

Though the theaters around the world continue to produce the plays of Oscar Wilde and even the Opera houses consider Strauss' adaptation of Wilde's "Salome" as a staple in the repertoire, and while biographies and films about this unique artist increase in number with every year, this book approaches yet another aspect of Wilde's genius. Charlotte Gere has researched the Aesthetic Movement in England at the turn of the century and attributes the style and popularity of the 'new look' in home decor to Wilde and his entourage. From paintings to furniture to wallpaper to fabric to book design - all the art nouveau trends were at times created by Wilde and at other times merely popularized by him on his numerous tours. The book is resplendent in illustrations of paintings, homes, photographs, and a lot of just fine biographical data about Oscar Wilde. A thoroughly informative and entertaining slant on The Importance of Being Oscar!

Being of Irish descent, I am very particular about hearing Irish stories in recorded form. There are some really good editions out nowadays. But this one is the best. I knew I was in the presence of greatness when I beheld the wonderful packaging, and it just got better the longer I listened to these truly wonderful stories. My favorite is one I've read many times, by Joyce, entitlled "The Boarding House." Here it is transformed into something that is difficult to describe and thrilling to experience. The narrator, who must be Irish, has perfectly deciphered Joyce's intent. He has also given us some of the very finest renditions of Irish stories I have ever encountered. "The Weaver's Grave" comes to life as if by magic. There is wonderful music here and very lifelike sound effects that are very skillfully and gently woven into the fabric of these great works. It is such a pleasure to listen to these recordings, you will be listening over and over again, as I have.

The Duckworth publication has a few nice, elaborate, and elegant line drawings (and 3 color plates) by Phillipe Julian.

The complete collection of his fairy tales is a treasure. Children should know the Nightingale and the Rose and the Selfish Giant just as they know Cinderella and Snow White. These are tragic tales, but so beautifully told.

Atheists who want their kids to be the same might not want them to see these stories, as Wilde writes of heaven and Jesus Christ. But that would be a disservice to the child... this is great literature.

In modern times, it is easy to overlook the contribution made to our heritage by Oscar Wilde. This book goes some way to redressing the balance as it conjures up the wicked wit of Wilde, in a very presentable fashion. Not a book to be read from cover to cover but one to be dipped into very often.

It may seem wilful to lead a selection of Oscar Wilde's major critical prose with an essay on left-wing politics, but 'The Soul of Man under Socialism' is more concerned with aesthetics than ethics: Wilde found socialism 'beautiful' because it encouraged freedom and individualism, freeing man to develop his emotional and imaginative lives. Wilde's Utopian scheme, as he admits, is gloriously impractical and contrary to human nature, but that's the point - it's because reforms are based on what is considered practical, rather than what might be possible or even unthinkable, that inequality and suffering persist. His vision of a future in which men dream and absorb Art as vaguely-imagined machines do all the menial work, reads like a delightful lampoon of HG Wells. Favourite Quotation: 'the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist and becomes a dull or amusing craftsman, an honest or dishonest tradesman').

The selection begins with examples of Wilde the professional reviewer at work, attending art lectures by Whistler, reading books by Pater and Swinburne, drawing attention to poetry anthologies by labouring socialists, praising an actress's memoirs. Some of the pieces are more theoretical, arguing, for instance, the importance and legacy of actors as critics of great theatre. Each article presents difficult and often radical ideas in an accessible and witty manner. FQ: 'where there is no exagerration there is no love, and where there is no love there is no understanding'.

'The Portrait of Mr. W.H.' (printed here in its extended 1889 revision) is quite simply one of the greatest achievements in the world literature of short fiction. 'Short story' doesn't begin to describe this work about a young scholar who commits suicide after being caught forging evidence to 'prove' a theory claiming that Shakespeare dedicated his Sonnets to a young actor-lover. 'Portrait' is mostly a dazzling exercise in critical play, but it is also a touching gay fantasy, a Nabokovian study of mad academics, a defence of 'forgery' as an aesthetic mode, a literary detective story, a history of the Elizabethan stage, an anthology of Elizabethan gossip, a Borgesian metaphysical puzzle and so much more. FQ: 'he always set an absurdly high value on personal appearance, and once read a paper before our Debating Society to prove that it was better to be good-looking than to be good'.

'In Defence of Dorian Gray' collects letters written by Wilde to hostile newspapers that branded his only novel immoral, decadent and demanded its interdiction. While it's depressing to see our hero stoop to these tedious non-entities, we must remember the dangerous influence of the reactionary press, and at least the letters make galvanising reading, helping Wilde formulate ideas that would shape the novel's famous 'All art is quite useless' preface. FQ: 'Good people exasperate one's reason; bad people stir one's imagination'.

But the major achievement here is the four-part collection 'Intentions', a still explosive series of critical dialogues, memoirs and essays which are only 'safe' today because they are labelled 'classic' - if anyone actually absorbed these radical, liberating pieces, with their provocative, teasing, shifting, playful, ironic, contradictory, unsystematic, aphoristic, hilarious assertions on Art, Beauty, Life, Philosophy, Morality, Ethics, Crime etc., the whole world would implode, or at least irrevocably change. 'The Decay of Lying' demolishes the depressing modes of realism and naturalism and the tyranny of facts; 'Pen, Pencil and Poison' is a portrait of Wainewright the Poisoner, Wilde discussing his crimes with the same aesthetic detachment as he does his art and writing; ''The Critic as Artist' is his masterpiece, a credo and a gauntlet; 'The Truth of Masks' is an essay on the importance of costume and historical accuracy when staging Shakespeare, and seems to contradict eveything else in the volume, with Wilde winningly admitting, 'Not that I agree with everything I have said in this essay'. FQ: 'The truth of metaphysics are the truth of masks'.

There are (at least) two Wildes in this volume; one whose address is utterly contemporary and congenial, intellectually curious, blasting all that is deadening, hypocritical and humbug, an alien in his own time. The other is startlingly Victorian, passionately engaged with elitist subjects that have little importance or (ugh) 'relevance' today (Classical literature, Aesthetics, the importance of form etc.), couching his theories in language that is often ornate, oritund, exotic, even verbose, a lush challenge to his fusty, pedantic peers.

Linda Dowling's introduction rescues Wilde from his earnest post-modern apologists and returns him fruitfully to his original context, the Oxford debates about 'Art for Art's sake' and the function of poetry and criticism,. Her copious notes are a blessing and necessity, as well as recreating a strange, wonderful, intellectually audacious cultural world, one that shames our depleted, dead-end, theory-strangulated, accept-anything age. I know you've heard this before, but this time it's true: BUY THIS BOOK AND LET IT CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

This little book is about Shakespeare's sonnets, but more than that it is a book about nineteenth-century young men and their obsession with Shakespeare. Two in particular become completely engaged by a particular literary interpretation--that Shakespeare wrote his beautiful sonnets not for a wealthy patron, but to his Rosalind, or rather to the actor who played all his lovely strong women--that is, to an adolescent boy. The book is a cautionary tale about heightened involvement in literary ideas. A literary idea can possess one as completely as opium, and can be just as dangerous

Jack Worthing is engaged to lady named Gwendolyn and they are soon to get married. Jack had to find away to escape from Miss Prism because she disapproved of him so he created a brother named Earnest. While Jack was in London he feel in love with another women named Cecily Carden. Over time his fiancée's mother started to see that there was more to Jack than what he was letting on to. The only reason that Cecily wants the marry Jack is because she thinks that his name is really Earnest. Jack/ Earnest has a fiancée but is in love with another women at the same time.

This is a very short book but at the same time it is very easy to get in to because of the conflicts that occur. This book is very funny especially the conversations between Jack and Algernon. The story is a political and social satire and a look at the upper British society. I thought that the story was great because of the humor but at the same time the story was kind of sneaky which drew me into the story even more. I would suggest the book to anyone.

Perhaps it is my unique sense of humor, but I found this book incredibly funny. I wasn't rolling on the floor or anything, but it is funny in an Oscar Wilde way. My personal favorite is The Importance of Being Earnest, although all the others are very good also. Get this book. There are great quotes and good characters.

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
Is that clever?
It's perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilized life should be."

This is just one of the many jocular exchanges and epigrams in this short but brilliant social satire. Wilde wryly and cleverly gets his claws into the upper caste and its twisted moral etqieuette, romantic relationships, and self-critically the propensity for sententious moral (and aesthetic) self-guidance.

Dispensing with politeness and social convention through his farcical dialogue, Wilde unleashes his comic criticism on all types of hypocrisies and spurious norms. The Importance of Being Ernest is always subversive and funny, but never crude or sophomoric.

That's right - if it isn't the single wittiest, funniest play ever, it's as close as you can get. Oscar Wilde had a great talent for dialogue and writing, but the real fun comes in the ingenious plotting and the side-splitting comments. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is absolutely filled with insightful, humorous barbs that take jabs at society - you'll literally be laughing out loud every page.

Not only is the play brilliantly ironic and witty, it's quite cheerful and good-natured. The characters are likable, the plot never takes itself too seriously, and the ending is happy. It seems that Wilde knew exactly what he wanted: to write a light-hearted, amusing play without serious overtones, and he succeeded wildly. This isn't to say that he sacrificed any literary qualities, as the play is recognized for the marvelous writing, but it is considerably more fun and entertaining than many other literary works.

In sum, Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" is a classic in every sense of the word, and it's tremendously fun to read. I can't recommend any comedy more highly.

This is absolutely the greatest comedy I have ever read! Its humor appeals more to the mind than the slapstick humor of American comedies. It's set in England, in and outside of London, and is a perfect example of a Comedy of Manners play, though written in the mid-1800s. It involves two men who make up a friend or relative that just "happens" to get into a bad situation whenever they want to go to town (or out in the country). Through extenuating circumstances, one comes to be known as Ernest in the town, and the other becomes the very same person out in the country.

This is the greatest comedy play ever written, and I would recommend it to anyone who finds Shakespeare too bland at parts, and the farce of the Three Stooges unbearable. It is probably one of the most well-written plays I have read or seen in my life, rising above most Shakespeare plays and such modern plays as "Inherit the Wind."

"The Importance of Being Earnest" holds a message behind the satire of the 19th century that crosses all time; it is better to be honest than to be caught as Ernest.

One of Oscar Wilde's most famous works, this play is a must read for anyone that is even remotely interested in English theater at any level.

"Comedy of Manners," Wilde's play is on the very shallow surface, a funny play that is full of some of his greatest epigrams.

At a deeper level, this play is full of political commentary, social satire and a look at the upper class British of a hundred years ago.

Using his world renound style and wit, Wilde, wrote a play that brought to light the majors flaws of the idle rich and the hypocracy that lived right on the surface of their every day lives.

Often immitated but never surpassed, Wilde had a way with words and an ability to get to the heart of matters while protecting himself; by making the people he was pointing his finger at, laugh at themselves.

This play should be bought, even if one has seen one of the many film versions, or a live revival of the show. The jokes are piled so thickly on top of each other, that in real time, it is imposible to catch everything, or to digest all of the deeper meanings that this play attempts to expose.

The Canterville Ghost is a small book, which is quite easy to read.
It is a funny story and there are a lot of jokes. Sometimes it is a little bit boring., but when you like the spiritual then you like this book.
It is a fantasy history, who you can use your own imagination. It is also a sad story, although superficially there is a happy ending.
There you see the difference between the serious minded English people and the practical Americans
You can see parallels between the story and the writer. Oscar Wilde had a very difficult life at the end, and in his story it is the ghost, which suffers a lot because of the fact that he has no audience who is willing to pay attention to his pranks.
I think it is a good book to read at school. And I have loved the jokes very much and I like the mystical and spiritual side of this book too.

The Canterville Ghost is a small book, which is quite easy to read. The difficult words have a translation in German.

It is a funny story and there are a lot of jokes. Sometimes it is a little bit boring., but when you like the spiritual then you like this book.
It is a fantasy history, who you can have your own imagination. It is a sad history, but there is a happy ending.

There you see the different between the serious spiritual English people and the practical American people.

You can see the similarity between the story and the writer. Oskar Wilde has had a very difficult live, and in his story is the ghost a thing, which have a bad live.

I think it is a good book for read at school, because it is a good English. And I have loved the jokes very much and I like the mystical and spiritual in this book.

I like this story really. It is a story of a ghost who want to fright the new American family but they are too easy and they aren't frightened. So he has a mission to do.
This story is unusual for a ghost. It is a interesting and thrilling story. It is also easy to read for students. I didn't feel bored, when I read this book, because you are in this thrilling situation. But it is also very funny and your face will be touched with a smile. So the whole story is very good.