Oscar Wilde (Gutenberg Index)

Oscar Wilde remains the most brilliant provocateur in English letters, a writer whose every sentence seems engineered to delight and scandalize in equal measure. This comprehensive collection gathers his complete works: the devastating novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, the comic masterpieces The Importance of Being Earnest and The Canterville Ghost, the raw poetry of The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and the piercing fairy tales that redefined the form. Here too are his essays on art and society, his philosophical dialogues, and the devastating De Profundis written from prison. What unites these disparate works is Wilde's singular conviction that beauty matters more than morality, that wit is a form of resistance, and that style is the only thing worth dying for. For anyone who has ever been seduced by a Wildean epigram, this collection offers the full feast.