Beautiful and Impossible Things E-Book

Oscar Wilde

• Herausgeber: Notting Hill Editions
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

This selection of essays by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) demonstrate the varied power of his genius. Compiled from his lecture tours, newspaper articles, essays and epigrams, these writings show that beneath his trademark wit and love of paradox, Oscar Wilde was an original and remarkably modern writer.

Leseprobe

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854 and is remembered for a diverse literary output encompassing his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, stories for children, poetry, plays including The Importance of Being Earnest, and a wide-ranging selection of essays and other prose works. Despite being highly celebrated in literary and social circles, he was tried for gross indecency following the loss of his libel case with the Marquis of Queensberry, and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. His health never recovered and he died in penury in Paris in 1900. He is buried there in Père Lachaise cemetery.

Gyles Brandreth is a writer, broadcaster, actor, former MP and Government Whip, best known as a reporter on The One Show on BBC 1 and a regular on Radio 4’s Just a Minute. In the 1970s he produced The Trials of Oscar Wilde on stage and, more recently, played Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. His many books include political diaries, theatrical biographies, an edition of Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales and a series of detective stories, The Oscar Wilde Mysteries, now published in 22 countries. He is a patron of The Oscar Wilde Society.

Oscar Wilde

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BEAUTIFUL AND IMPOSSIBLE THINGS

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introduced by Gyles Brandreth

‘… over our heads will float the Blue Bird singing of beautiful and impossible things, of things that are lovely and that never happen, of things that are not and that should be.’

– Oscar Wilde, ‘The Decay of Lying’, 1891

Contents

– Title Page –– Epigraph –– Introduction by Gyles Brandreth –– The House Beautiful –– Dinners and Dishes –– Shakespeare on Scenery –– Hamlet at the Lyceum –– Count Tolstoi’s War and Peace–– The American Invasion –– Aristotle at Afternoon Tea –– London Models –– The Decay of Lying: An Observation –– The Soul of Man under Socialism –– Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray–– A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated –– Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young –– The Case of Warder Martin: Some Cruelties of Prison Life –– Notes –– About the Publisher –– Other titles from Notting Hill Editions –– Copyright –

Gyles Brandreth

– Introduction –

I have more than a hundred books about Oscar Wilde on my study shelves. I could have many more: there are thousands to choose from. ‘Oscar Wilde Studies’ has become one of the academic industries of our time. But of all the biographies I know, there are two to which I return most often.

One is The Wilde Album, a small book, beautifully written by Merlin Holland, Wilde’s only grandchild, the son of his second son, Vyvyan Holland, and illustrated with fascinating material drawn from the family archive. Within the book are two pages from an American ‘Confession Album’, filled out by Wilde some time in 1877, the year in which he turned twenty-three. Some of the answers Wilde gives are the ones we would expect. Almond blossom is young Oscar’s favourite fragrance, the lily is his flower of choice. His preferred season is the beginning of autumn and for his ‘Object in Nature’ he chooses ‘The sea (when there are no bathing machines)’.

Some of the answers provoke a smile: ‘What is your favourite occupation? Reading my own sonnets’.

‘If not yourself, who would you rather be? A Cardinal of the Catholic Church.’

And several make us ponder: ‘What are the sweetest words in the world? Well done!’