Book description
Selection includes The Portrait of Mr W. H., Wilde's defence of
Dorian Gray, reviews, and the writings from 'Intentions' (1891): 'The
Decay of Lying, 'Pen, Pencil, Poison', and 'The Critic as Artist'.
Wilde is familiar to us as the ironic critic behind the social
comedies, as the creator of the beautiful and doomed Dorian Gray, as
the flamboyant aesthete and the demonised homosexual. This volume
presents us with a different Wilde. Wilde emerges here as a deep and
serious reader of literature and philosophy, and an eloquent and
original thinker about society and art.
Born in Ireland, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wilde (1854-1900) was
educated in Dublin and Oxford and went on to become the leading and
most prominent exponent of aestheticism. He wrote many plays, a novel,
short stories, poetry and criticism. Imprisoned for homosexual acts,
he died after his release in exile in Paris.
Linda Dowling is Professor of English at Princeton.
