Oscar Wilde

Help your students read their way to better English with this new edition of the world's best graded readers — now with a new range of World Stories, fully revised Factfiles, more audio, and new tests. The new edition includes the original Bookworms stories, plus the Starters, Playscripts and Factfiles, making it easy for you to see the full choice of books at each Stage. The highly acclaimed seven-stage system of grading, from Starter to Stage 6, remains the same, helping you to find the right level for all your students. There has been a ghost in the house for three hundred years, and Lord Canterville's family have had enough of it. So Lord Canterville sells his grand old house to an American family. Mr Hiram B. Otis is happy to buy the house and the ghost — because of course Americans don't believe in ghosts. The Canterville ghost has great plans to frighten the life out of the Otis family. But Americans don't frighten easily — especially not two noisy little boys — and the poor ghost has a few surprises waiting for him.

The Oxford Bookworms Library provides superb reading and student / teacher support for the classroom, and is also highly recommended for schools running Extensive Reading Programmes, offering the right range of books that encourage students to read for pleasure. 'When we are happy, we are always good', says Lord Henry, 'but when we are good, we are not always happy'. Lord Henry's lazy, clever words lead the young Dorian Gray into a world where it is better to be beautiful than to be good; a world where anything can be forgiven — even murder — if it can make people laugh at a dinner party.

'There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about', said Oscar Wilde more than a hundred years ago. But this remark seems perhaps even more relevant to our present world where so many seek publicity at any cost. Wilde's well-turned phrases and spontaneous insults still cause much amusement and admiration. Most of us miss the opportunities for bon mots, finding them long after the moments have passed, but Wilde seems never to have been short of suitable words — flattering, witty and on occasions savagely cruel. Many of the quotes in this book are taken from Wilde's plays, novels and essays which were also packed with witticisms amounting to an outrageous philosophy. Wilde's extravagance and unconventional behaviour earned him loyal friends but also bitter enemies and in 1895 after a series of unfortunate events and court cases he was gaoled for two years with hard labour for indecent behaviour. Though from prison came a few last brilliant works, Wilde was never to recover his health or standing in society. He died in Paris bankrupt, broken and alone. He is buried at Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise — one of Paris' finest cemeteries — where today many pilgrims from all parts of the world come to pay their respects and leave tokens in recognition of his genius.

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, particularly 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.

This comprehensive collection showcases Oscar Wilde's brilliant story-telling skills and his amazing stylistic versatility, ranging from fairy tales and ghost stories to detective yarns and comedies of manners. It includes the complete texts of The Happy Prince and Other Tales, A House of Pomegranates, Lord Arthur Savile's Crim and Other Stories, Poems in Prose, and the critical essay «The Portrait of Mr. W. H.» Originally published in the late 1880s and early 1890s, these tales predate Wilde's fame as a dramatist. When he wrote them, he was best known among fashionable London society as a drawing-room raconteur. Many of the character types now familiar from his comedies first emerged in these stories, along with his gifted use of parady, melodrama, paradox, and irony. Even more significantly, they reflect the author's preoccupation with opposites — idealistic love and desire, art and life, sincerity and artifice, innocene and sin, altruism and greed, and honesty and deceit — offering captivating expressions of the themes that dominated Wilde's life and thought.

ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED. BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP. The classic Gothic tale of horror that explores the pleasures and dangers of a life of decadence. EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES: — A concise introduction that gives readers important background information — A chronology of the author's life and work — A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context — An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations — Detailed explanatory notes — Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work — Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction — A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential. SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON.

'The Young King' tells how a shepherd boy becomes a king and realises that money is not worth human suffering. In 'The Star Child' a baby is found in the forest and discovers his true identity after many adventures. 'The Nightingale and the Rose' is a tale of a nightingale who sacrifices her life to create the perfect red rose for a student in love.

Wilde, glamorous and notorious, more famous as a playwright or prisoner than as a poet, invites readers of his verse to meet an unknown and intimate figure. The poetry of his formative years includes the haunting elegy to his young sister and the grieving lyric at the death of his father. The religious drama of his romance with Rome is captured here, as well as its resolution in his renewed love of ancient Greece. He explores forbidden sexual desires, pays homage to the great theatre stars and poets of his day, observes cityscapes with impressionist intensity. His final masterpiece, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, tells the painful story of his own prison experience and calls for universal compassion. This edition of Wilde's verse presents the full range of his achievement as a poet.

When Mr Hiram B. Otis decides to buy Canterville Chase, everyone tells him that he is crazy because the house is haunted by a ghost. And when the American family comes to live there, strange things begin to happen: a bloodstain that changes colour, mysterious noises in the night, a journey to the Garden of Death.

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, particularly 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.

Wilde's only novel, first published in 1890, is a brilliantly designed puzzle, intended to tease conventional minds with its exploration of the myriad interrelationships between art, life, and consequence. From its provocative Preface, challenging the reader to believe in 'art for art's sake', to its sensational conclusion, the story self-consciously experiments with the notion of sin as an element of design. Yet Wilde himself underestimated the consequences of his experiment, and its capacity to outrage the Victorian establishment. Its words returned to haunt him in his court appearances in 1895, and he later recalled the 'note of doom' which runs like 'a purple thread' through its carefully crafted prose.

Oscar Wilde has been acknowledged as the wittiest writer in the English language. This collection proves that he was also one of the most versatile. Effortlessly achieved, each revealing a different aspect of his brilliance, all of the plays, prose writings, and poems gathered here support Wilde’s belief that entertainment provides the best kind of edification. The works gathered here include Wilde’s once-controversial and now classic novel, «The Picture of Dorian Gray», the rioutously (sic) comic plays “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “Lady Windermere’s Fan”, and the famous poem he wrote after being released from prison, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”. This expanded new edition now includes the complete version of Wilde’s moving letter from prison, De Profundis, and his teasing parable about Shakespeare, The Portrait of Mr. W. H. Other notable included writings are the semi-comic mystery story “Lord Arthur’s Savile’s Crime” and the essay «The Soul of Man Under Socialism».

A story on love and friendship by Oscar Wilde. The story is about a fisherman who catches a mermaid. He lets her go because she promises to help him fish. Each day the mermaid appears and sings her song, so he falls in love with her! However, she cannot marry him until he has lost his human soul.

A selection of twelve thematically-paired stories by a wide range of authors including Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Arthur C. Clarke, Kate Chopin, Maeve Binchy, Penelope Lively, Richard Hughes and Ed McBain. The stories are presented in six highly contemporary themes – children, love, mystery, murder, money, war – and accompanied by fascinating articles from English-language newspapers and newsmagazines. Designed to help students progress from intermediate to advanced level, this book encourages class discussion and enables students to improve their ability to put forward an argument in English. The graded chapters help students keep track of the progress they make.