The wonderful Oscar Wilde! My absolute favorite along with Proust and Balzac. And yes, scandalous he was indeed. Unfortunately this led to his early death under rather sad circumstances in exile. Always having a beautiful green flower in his buttonhole.
I can recommend all his plays and if you're interested also his take on socialism and the very private but probably most genuine rant De Profundis.
And the Guttenberg Project is truly amazing, don't know how I stumbled across it, but that could be the sole reason for me to get an e-book.
scepticalscribe, I'll quite envie you reading The Decameron - I just can't finish The Golden Bough, takes me forever. Do you read it in Italian or English?
Re
The Decameron, I shall read it in English. My Italian is perfectly adequate for reading recipes, descriptions of wine regions, and pub, restaurant - occasional political - and related casual conversations, but is most certainly not up to meeting
The Decameron in its native tongue. (In a later life, or, later in this one, we shall have to address that deficiency).
Re OFOFW, unfortunately, his tragedy partly came about through a catastrophic lapse - nay, lapses - of judgement, and the values of the age, which were hypocritical and grossly unjust, and in Wilde's case, inhumane. The first lapse, naturally, was the fact of his relationship with Bosie, who was a thoroughly unpleasaant piece of work. (Some of Wilde's other lovers, such as Robert Ross, were far finer human beings).
The exceedingly boorish Marquess of Queensberry (the same who devised the Queensberry Rules which govern boxing - who was also the appalling Bosie's father) stormed into Wilde's club and left a calling card for Wilde with the word 'sodomite' (characteristically misspelled as 'somdomite') written on it. Wilde, unfortunately, instead of laughing it off, and quipping about the atrocious manners - and spelling - of the Marquess, instead, sued for libel. And lost. Whereupon he was arrested, charged, and convicted.
I have an exquisite hard-back copy of
"The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde" which I bought for myself - as a treat - when I started teaching; I can see it still on my shelves as I write.
His plays are superb - and got better the longer he wrote, the short stories exquisite, and
The Ballad of Reading Gaol inspired. And yes,
De Profundis, is a magisterial piece of work.
Some of his essays are astonishing - such as what he wrote on socialism, (and his subversive take on Shakespeare's sonnets, which is a delicious, but extremely well-researched piece of academic daring).
Anyway, twietee, I agree completely with you. He is one of my all-time favourite writers, too.
I too have used The Guttenburg Project @work when I forget to bring whatever tome I'm involved in.
That said,
The Count of Monte Cristo has been fantastic! I do wish he'd cut back on characters though. There are several now and it is hard to keep up.
The perils and pit-falls of writing in serial form..........but yes, a thoroughly dashing & enjoyable read.
