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El Retrato de Dorian Grey, El fantasma de Cantervlle y otros cuentos, De profundis, El abanico de lady Windermere, La importancia de llamarse Ernesto

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Graphic Classics: Oscar Wilde features "The Picture of Dorian Gray", Wilde's tale of narcissism and horror, adapted for comics by Alex Burrows and illustrated by Lisa K. Weber. Plus the comic satire "The Canterville Ghost" by Antonella Caputo and Nick Miller, "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" by Rich Rainey and Rich Tommaso, and an adaptation of Wilde's exotic play "Salome", illustrated by Molly Kiely.

621 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

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About the author

Oscar Wilde

5,495 books38.8k followers
Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.

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5 stars
77 (48%)
4 stars
56 (35%)
3 stars
20 (12%)
2 stars
5 (3%)
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
Profile Image for Gerry.
Author 43 books118 followers
April 6, 2024
Arguably if one has read plenty about Oscar Wilde it is difficult to imagine reading another biography and finding much different or new information. But Martin Fido has done an excellent job in covering the major events in his life (and there were plenty) and bringing in many nuances that just might not be as well known. The result is an excellent and sympathetic biography that is supported by dozens of superb illustrations of people and places relevant to Wilde's turbulent life and times.

The son of an eye surgeon and a poet, Oscar grew up well aware of scandal as his father was something of a philanderer and got himself into numerous scrapes but Oscar never really doubted that his parents' name was unsmirched. As a youngster his mother dressed him in girl's clothes but as a 10-year-old young boy he was sent to Portora Royal School and from there he went on to begin his undergraduate career at Trinity College, Dublin.

He was not one of the notable undergraduates of his day at Trinity despite his academic success; it was said he 'whored and drank his way through college in a way that his fellow students respected'. He did win a scholarship worth £95 per year for four years to Magdalen College, Oxford and his attendance there brought him into contact with such as Ruskin, Pater and Newman. And he quickly realised that the highest reputation within the university was won by making some sort of name outside it. And this he did with aplomb.

He began to write, poetry - his first published volume was regarded as quite poor - and art exhibition reviews for Irish journals back home. He was a somewhat troublesome student and he used Oxford adroitly, wringing all the honour and notoriety that he could from being there. His time there certainly laid the firm foundations of the legendary Oscar Wilde as he sought to be known as the friend and admirer of the loveliest women of the day including Lily Langtry, Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt and Helen Modjeska.

Despite this reputation and these friendships and the fact that he had married Constance Lloyd on 29 May 1884, the notion that Oscar was homosexual was scouted by his friends and acquaintances as early as 1886 and many thought that he was probably bisexual. He befriended the artist James McNeill Whistler - a friendship that was eventually to end acrimoniously - and, as one of the leading aesthetes of the day he was parodied by Gilbert and Sullivan in their opera 'Patience'. This led to Oscar embarking on a successful lecture tour of America where he was a great social success.

On his return he spent a short time in London before visiting Paris where he stayed three months and enjoyed the friendship of Victor Hugo, the 'greatest lion' that he met and the Bohemian Paul Verlaine and he also visited Sarah Bernhardt on two occasions. In addition he was strongly influenced by Balzac and Baudelaire and it was in Paris that he met Robert Sherard who became a loyal friend and his biographer.

Back in London he briefly edited 'The Woman's World' and began to write his plays, which were supported by another Irishman, George Bernard Shaw. He met Frank Harris whose editorial skills he admired and he became firm friends with Robert 'Bobbie' Ross, who was also later to write extensively of Wilde.

He continued to write and the culminating triumph of the years 1888 to 1891 was the novel 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and he became a somebody in the literary world. He had at least a nodding acquaintance with such as Henry James, Kipling and George Moore, the last named who envied and disliked him but who was compelled to admit the charm of his company. 'Lady Windermere's Fan', 'A Woman of No Importance' and 'An Ideal Husband' sealed his literary fame.

But then he met Lord Alfred Douglas, 'Bosie' by nickname, and his downfall began. Bosie's father the Marquess of Queensberry began it all when he left his card at Oscar's club with a note to Oscar stating that he was 'posing [as a] somdomite' (not a good speller the Marquess!) and this began the series of well-known and well recorded events that were to lead to Oscar's downfall.

It all led to a two-year jail sentence that at least spawned 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' and 'De Profundis' but on his release led to exile in Paris where he lived as Sebastian Melmoth and went on occasional trips to Italy with Bosie. An ear problem contracted in jail contributed to his eventual death and he was perhaps aware that this was to be the short-term outcome for as 1900 approached he said, '[I]t would be really more than the English could stand if another century began and I were still alive.' By November he was dying of meningitis and he passed away on 30 November, 1900.

What a character, what a literary output, what a wit and what an experience it must have been to have known him (he did visit my hometown of Blackpool for one of his lectures that I have written about in my short run publications but, of course, that was very, very many years before I arrived on the scene!). Martin Fido gives us the next best thing with a splendid biography of the man.
Profile Image for Sjors.
321 reviews9 followers
February 1, 2021
Biographies must always trace the fine line between "a tract so general as to mimic wholesale ignorance" and "a bumper volume containing everything and the kitchen sink". This 1973 biography of Oscar Wilde by Martin Fido does that very well to my taste. The narrative is competent and seems well-balanced and I especially liked the wealth of well-chosen illustrations. Definitely a work to collect for Wilde fans and people interested in the 'Fin de Siecle'.
13 reviews29 followers
December 5, 2024
I particularly enjoyed the plays ‘Lady Windermere’s Fan’ and ‘ A Woman of No Importance’. Both dealt with issues of gendered expectations and morality with wit. Wilde’s ability to convey important moral questions and realities with wit is both funny and challenging. The generalisations regarding relationships particularly from a gendered specific perspective, usually through humorous dialogue, are not only relatable and funny to me as a modern reader but also makes me question to what extent these witty generalisations are true reflections of reality.

Profile Image for 燕南.
54 reviews1 follower
December 5, 2025
「適度的東西都不會是好的。只有用過分的方式蹂躪它,你才能了解到它的好處。」

讀完了。後勁好強,我將重刷,書評晚點補。先貼個喜歡且我覺得可以在一定程度上概括王爾德人生的、他本人的語錄。
Profile Image for Henry Sturcke.
Author 5 books32 followers
June 28, 2020
This inexpensive coffee-table book contains a brief life of Oscar Wilde and well-chosen illustrations. The author of the text, Martin Fido, taxes Wilde with being a minor writer, although he grants that the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray and his poem, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” are masterpieces. The plays—notably “The Importance of Being Earnest”—were the best contribution to the British stage since the Restoration comedies and taught Wilde’s fellow Irish Protestant, Shaw, a thing or two about witty dialogue. And the book-length, spleen-filled epistle to his “Bosie,” Sir Alfred Douglas, De Profundis, gets a high rating as well.
Wilde’s fame rests more, however, on his downfall. As Fido casts it, Wilde became the victim of his own hubris in having Douglas’s father, the Marquess of Queensbury, arrested and put on trial for libel. That vigorous but eccentric exemplar of British manhood, remembered today for codifying the rules of boxing, had accused Wilde of being a “sondomite” and blamed him for corrupting his son, Alfred (although it was far too late for that by the time the two met).
The suit led to Wilde’s sentencing to two years’ hard labor in prison, from which he emerged a broken man. His wife changed her name and took their two sons to the continent to escape notoriety. As Fido tells it, the severe sentence led to a slackening of the hounding of homosexuals in Britain for a half-century. When it flared up again after World War Two (Alan Turing, for example), another wave of revulsion over the penalties set in, leading to decriminalization.
This then is the legacy of Oscar Wilde. His success during his lifetime was not primarily literary, but social. He was a brilliant dinner guest, sought after by aristocrats not because they thought of him as one of their own (as Wilde wished to believe) but as witty entertainment for their other guests. When lampooned in Punch and by Gilbert and Sullivan, he took it in good nature. Among his deepest friendships were leading actresses and beauties of the day, Sarah Bernhardt, Ellen Terry, and Lily Langtry. Fido stresses Wilde’s qualities of generosity and sympathy.
All in all, this book is a good introduction to the life and times of a pop star from the last years of the Victorian era.
Profile Image for Diego Beaumont.
388 reviews585 followers
December 25, 2015
Pude disfrutar de este cuento corto, demasiado corto para mi gusto sobre un curioso fanatasma. Me gustó el estilo de Wilde, irónico y refinado. Este fantasma tiene una personalidad, diremos arrolladora y está presente a lo largo de toda la historia. Lo recomiendo totalmente ya que es un cuento, sencillo y divertido, que ha servido como base para un montón de historias.
Profile Image for Luis Mtz.
21 reviews
April 11, 2013
Entre la elegancia del lenguaje, el descaro con que retrata a la sociedad (que pareciera no haber cambiado) y los sentimientos que logra captar en letras, ya soy fan oficial del señor Wilde.
Profile Image for Mckenzee Johnson.
144 reviews
June 8, 2025
A wonderful collection of plays! My reviews for them:
Lady Windermere's Fan: Funny, Witty, and delightfully engaging. Lady Windermere is a snobbish character that one eventually feels sympathy for, and Wilde's trademark epigrams are rife throughout the work. It is short but well written, and very entertaining. 4.5 Stars.

A Woman of No Importance: My favorite play in the collection. Not only does it have some amazing lines (such as "Who, being loved, is poor?"), it has a wonderful overall message about society's standards and their impacts on the people who try to meet them. Wilde is excellent at creating a complex work that is still pleasant to read, and he does so extremely well in this play. The ending of act IV is particularly good. 5 stars.

An Ideal Husband: A decent and humorous play about dishonesty, class, wealth, and politics. I found the storyline less engaging than in Wilde's other plays, but it was still full of lovable (and hatable) characters, like Miss Cheveley and Lord Goring. A decent read. 3 Stars.

The Importance of Being Earnest: This was my second time reading this work, and I enjoyed it much more after taking more time to engaging with it and accustoming myself to Wilde's style of writing. This play is laugh out loud funny and has a great storyline. The neologism "Bunburying" is comedy enough, alongside the other jokes Wilde includes in the play. I can see why this is one of Wilde's more popular works. 4.5 Stars.

Salomé: I don't want to say that I didn't like this play, but I'm not sure that I completely understood it. Once I put together that Jokanaan is John the Baptist, I understood which Bible story it was focused on, and I could follow the plot better, but I feel as if some of the play may have gone over my head. Originally written in French to avoid British censorship laws, this play is less humorous and more philosophical than the others in this collection. I would recommend it, but I think I need to reread it to be able to rate it fairly.
Profile Image for Ruth Sierra.
54 reviews1 follower
July 3, 2016
Me dio mucho más de lo que pensaba Wilde. Lo mejor de la vida no es la belleza,porque tu alma puede estar pudriéndose. Atrapa el deseo de muchos en esta época y la carencia de la mayoría en todos lo tiempos. Una narrativa fluida que te hace ir de la historía son brincos, al contrario te permite leer y disfrutar la escencia de la novela misma. Altamente recomendada. Es un placer leer está obra. Y pensar que mucho se habla de Dorian pero cuántos de verdad lo han leído? yo ya, jejeje.
Profile Image for Rafa Cortes aguilera.
135 reviews47 followers
October 8, 2013
Me encanto el retrato de Dorian grey, de principio a fin. Esta historia estallena de pequeñas lecciones, un humor negro exquisito, personajes excéntricos y el final de la historia es tan oportuno. Una novela con final de cuento. Por lo demás los cuentos del libro y las obras de teatro son muy entretenidas. De profundis si me costo digerirla pero es una lectura que de igual manera te engancha.
245 reviews
May 14, 2022
The Importance of Being Earnest is a gem. It artfully integrates Wilde's bon mots and love of the absurd with an intricate and amusing plot. The other four plays are surprisingly moral, with the message that love and generosity are of far greater value than platitudes and principles. The final play, Salome, is bizarre, but probably beautiful in its original language, which was French.
Profile Image for Nelly Lopez.
7 reviews
October 24, 2009
esta recopilación de obras del escritor Oscar Wilde me gusto mucho ya que en su libro deprofundis, muetra al hombre que amo y cuya sociedad de aquella epoca no lo acepto la cual lo reprendio dejandolo en la misera.
y en sus demás obras nos muestra su gran talento como escritor.
215 reviews21 followers
April 22, 2017
Leído:
El fantasma de Canterville
El cumpleaños de una infanta
El pescador y su alma
El príncipe feliz
El ruiseñor de la rosa
El amigo leal
La importancia de llamarse Ernesto
El abanico de Lady Windermere
Profile Image for Jorge Luis Gallegos Vargas.
19 reviews8 followers
September 17, 2021
Esta selección de obras de Wilde es una muestra del gran escritor que era y que todo lo hacía bien. Va de la novela al cuento, la epístola y luego al teatro. Sin duda me quedo con “El retrato de Dorian Gray”, “El abanico de Lady Windermere” y el cuento “El príncipe feliz”.
1 review
Want to read
February 3, 2009
ErEs bIeN ChIdA ErEs lA MejOr hErMaNa dEl mUndO Te qUiErO MiL
Profile Image for Andrés Cabrera.
447 reviews86 followers
March 26, 2012
Excelentes cuentos, que harán sacar una sonrisa tanto a chicos como adultos. Una pluma exquisita...
Profile Image for Surfy.
468 reviews1 follower
May 21, 2023
Solo leí El retrato de Dorian Gray
Profile Image for Arnold Baca.
22 reviews
November 23, 2016
Fenomenal la manera exquisita de criticar a la sociedad. Me gusta el cinismo para burlarse de las cosas a las que comúnmente le damos demasiada importancia.
Profile Image for Germán Moya.
684 reviews147 followers
April 28, 2021
Como cualquier clásico, un disfrute necesario.
Todas las obras de este compendio son geniales, aunque me quedo con El retrato de Dorian Grey por todo el simbolismo que entraña
3 reviews
January 26, 2023
The plays are repetitive in structure but beautiful nonetheless. Salome is a bit underwhelming imo but honest to god she is kind of an icon.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews

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