Oscar Wilde

This Vintage edition of The Plays of Oscar Wilde contains the plays that made Wilde one of the most important dramatists of his time, including The Importance of Being Earnest, one of the great works of modern literature. Oscar Wilde's plays demonstrate once again why their author must be seen as both an inaugurator and a master of modernism. In his best work, the subversive insights embedded in his wit continue to challenge our common assumptions....

The Importance of Being Earnest is one of Wilde's most famous plays and still commands the affection of the public through its cinematic adaptations; most recently with Reece Witherspoon and Colin Firth. In Earnest, Wilde uses a mixture of social drama; popular at the time and other popular but less politically engaged forms such as melodrama and farce. The use of gentle parody is probably what protected Wilde from the more biting attacks aimed at...

The Complete Fairy Stories of Oscar Wilde gathers all nine of Oscar Wilde's whimsical, poignant fabulations from The Happy Prince and Other Tales and The House of Pomegranates. Laced with Wilde's legendary drollery, these fanciful tales touch on the themes of love, devotion, creativity, compassion, friendship, and longing with both irresistible charm and profound insight. As appealing to adults as children, these ingenious gems by a master storyteller...

More than 1000 ripostes, paradoxes, and epigrams on sin, society, genius, wealth, men, women, religion, America, education, and smoking: "Work is the curse of the drinking classes," "I can resist everything except temptation," etcetera. Also excerpts from his trial testimony, where the tragedy implicit in Wilde's humor is nowhere more vivid.

Includes the following works: Novels- The Portrait of Dorian Gray; Plays-Salome and The Importance of Being Earnest; Writings-De Profundis, Critic as Artist, and Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Very Young; and selections from Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and A Woman of No Importance. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Salome and The Importance of Being Earnest are accompanied by Wilde's prison memoirs, poems, and selected correspondence....

The Importance of Being Earnest and Four Other Plays, by Oscar Wilde, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars • Biographies of...