Oscar Wilde - The Complete Short Fiction

OSCAR WILDE: COMPLETE SHORT FICTION

OSCAR FINGAL OFLAHERTIE WILLS WILDE, was born in Dublin in 1854, the son of an eminent eye-surgeon and a nationalist poetess who wrote under the pseudonym of Speranza. He went to Trinity College, Dublin and then to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he began to propagandize the new Aesthetic (or Art for Arts sake) Movement. Despite winning a first and the Newdigate Prize for poetry, Wilde failed to obtain an Oxford fellowship, and was forced to earn a living by lecturing and writing for periodicals. He published a largely unsuccessful volume of poems in 1881 and in the next year undertook a lecture tour of the United States in order to promote the DOyly Carte production of Gilbert and Sullivans comic opera Patience. After his marriage to Constance Lloyd in 1884, he tried to establish himself as a writer, but with little initial success. However, his three volumes of short fiction, The Happy Prince (1888), Lord Arthur Saviles Crime (1891) and A House of Pomegranates (1891), together with his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), gradually won him a reputation as a modern writer with an original talent, a reputation confirmed and enhanced by the phenomenal success of his Society Comedies Lady Windermeres Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, all performed on the West End stage between 1892 and 1895.

Success, however, was short-lived. In 1891 Wilde had met and fallen extravagantly in love with Lord Alfred Douglas. In 1895, when his success as a dramatist was at its height, Wilde brought an unsuccessful libel action against Douglass father, the Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde lost the case and two trials later was sentenced to two years imprisonment for acts of gross indecency. As a result of this experience he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He was released from prison in 1897 and went into an immediate self-imposed exile on the Continent. He died in Paris in ignominy in 1900.

IAN SMALL is professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham. His publications include Conditions for Criticism: Authority, Knowledge, and Literature in the Late Nineteenth Century (1991), Oscar Wilde Revalued (1993), and (with Josephine Guy) Politics and Value in English Studies (1993) and Oscar Wildes Profession: Writing and the Culture Industry in the Late Nineteenth Century (2001). In 1992 he edited (with Marcus Walsh) The Theory and Practice of Text-Editing.

OSCAR WILDE

Edited by IAN SMALL

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This edition first published 1994
Reprinted with minor revisions 2003
11

Copyright Ian Small, 1994, 2003
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EISBN: 9781101488799

1854 Oscar Fingal OFlahertie Wilde born (he added Wills in the 1870s) on 16 October at 21 Westland Row, Dublin.

1855 His family move to 1 Merrion Square in Dublin.

1857 Birth of Isola Wilde, Oscars sister.

1858 Birth of Constance Mary Lloyd, Wildes future wife.

1864 Wildes father is knighted following his appointment as Queen Victorias Surgeon Oculist the previous year. Wilde attends Portora Royal School, Enniskillen.

1867 Death of Isola Wilde.

18714 At Trinity College, Dublin, reading Classics and Ancient History.

18748 At Magdalen College, Oxford, reading Classics and Ancient History (Greats).

1875 Travels in Italy with his tutor from Dublin, J. P. Mahaffy.

1876 First poems published in Dublin University Magazine. Death of Sir William Wilde.

1877 Further travels in Italy, and in Greece.

1878 Wins the Newdigate Prize for Poetry in Oxford with Ravenna. Takes a double first from Oxford. Moves to London and starts to establish himself as a popularizer of Aestheticism.

1879 Meets Constance Lloyd.

1881 Poems published at his own expense; not well received critically.

1882 Lecture tour of North America, speaking on art, aesthetics and decoration. Revised edition of Poems published.

1883 His first play, Vera; or, The Nihilists performed in New York; it is not a success.

1884 Marries Constance Lloyd in London, honeymoon in Paris and Dieppe.

1885 Moves into 16 Tite Street, Chelsea. Cyril Wilde born.

1886 Vyvyan Wilde born. Meets Robert Ross, to become his lifelong friend and, in 1897, his literary executor. Ross might have been Wildes first homosexual lover.

1887 Becomes the editor of Ladys World: A Magazine of Fashion and Society, and changes its name to Womans World. Publication of The Canterville Ghost and Lord Arthur Savils Crime.

1888 The Happy Prince and Other Tales published; on the whole well-received.

1889 Pen, Pencil and Poison (on the forger and poisoner Thomas Griffiths Wainewright), The Decay of Lying (a dialogue in praise of artifice over nature and art over morality), The Portrait of Mr W.H. (on the supposed identity of the dedicatee of Shakespeares sonnets) all published.

1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray published in the July number of Lippincotts Monthly Magazine; fierce debate between Wilde and hostile critics ensues. The True Function and Value of Criticism (later revised and included in Intentions as The Critic as Artist) published.

1891 Wildes first meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie). The Duchess of Padua performed in New York. The Soul of Man Under Socialism and Preface to Dorian Gray published in February and March in the Fortnightly Review. The revised and extended edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray published by Ward, Lock and Company in April. Intentions (collection of critical essays), Lord Arthur Saviles Crime and Other Stories and A House of Pomegranates (fairy-tales) published.

1892 Lady Windermeres Fan performed at St Jamess Theatre, London (February to July).

1893 Salom published in French. A Woman of No Importance performed at Haymarket Theatre, London.

1894 Salome published in English with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley; Douglas is the dedicatee. The Sphinx, a poem with illustrations by Charles Ricketts, published.

1895 An Ideal Husband opens at Haymarket Theatre in January; it is followed by the hugely successful