The Complete Shorter Fiction

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was an Irish writer and poet who distinguished himself as a leader of London's school of Aesthetics in the late nineteenth century. He became famous for his long hair, flamboyant dress, green carnations and colorful, biting wit. His successful novels, social comedies, poetry and letters reflected his belief in the supremacy of art. This collection of Wilde's short fiction, written between 1888 and 1891, includes: "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories," a series of social parody stories; "The Portrait of Mr. W. H.," a conversational story that puts forth the theory that Shakespeare wrote his sonnets out of love for a boy actor named Willie Hughes; "Poems in Prose," a satirical collection of poems on complacency and religious orthodoxy of the bourgeoisie; "The Happy Prince and Other Tales," a collection of stories for children; and "A House of Pomegranates," Wilde's well-known fairy tales.