Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
...
OSCAR WILDE'S WORKS are suffused with his aestheticism,brilliant craftsmanship, legendary wit and, ultimately, his tragic muse. He wrote tender fairy stories for children employing all his grace, artistry and wit, of which the best-known is The Happy Prince. Counterpoints to this were his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, which shocked and outraged many readers of his day, and his stories for adults which exhibited his fascination with the relations between serene art and decadent life.
Wilde took London by storm with his plays, most notably with his masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest. His essays - in particular De Profundis and his Ballad of Reading Gaol, both written after his release from prison - strikingly break the bounds of his usual expressive range.His other essays and poems are all included in this comprehensive collection of the works of one of the most exciting writers of the late nineteenth century.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
LORD ARTHUR SAVILE’S CRIME
AND OTHER STORIES
Lord Arthur Savile's Crime
The Sphinx without a Secret
The Canterville Ghost
The Model Millionaire
The Portrait of Mr W. H.
A HOUSE OF POMEGRANATES
This volume dedicated to Constance Mary Wilde
The Young King
The Birthday of the Infanta
The Fisherman and his Soul
The Star-Child
THE HAPPY PRINCE AND OTHER TALES
This volume dedicated to Carlos Blacker
The Happy Prince
The Nightingale and the Rose
The Selfish Giant
The Devoted Friend
The Remarkable Rocket
Vera
The Duchess of Padua
Lady Windermere's Fan
A Woman of No Importance
An Ideal Husband
The Importance of Being Earnest
Salome
La Sainte Court#am
A Florentine Tragedy
THE POETICAL WORKS
Poems
The Sphinx
The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Ravenna
INTENTIONS
The Decay of Lying
Pen, Pencil and Poison
The Critic as Artist
The Truth of Masks
The Soul of Man under Socialism
De Profundis