I felt I had to try Oscar Wilde's short stories as I've read quite a few other short story collections lately. I've had this book on my shelf for eons. My version is a beautiful hardback with colourful Picasso-like illustrations. Even with that though, I just didn't really get into the stories. A good part of the book has Wilde's fairytales. Who knew Wilde wrote fairytales? He did a good job with them and his descriptive prose is wonderful, but I just wasn't interested in them. The other stories in the book were very good though. I particularly liked the Canterville Ghost. It's a delightful ghost story, but Wilde's take on it was extremely unique. Oscar Wilde was a wonderfully descriptive writer, and perhaps his troubled short life was the driving force behind his writing style. I know that I particularly love his book - The Portrait of Dorian Gray. Wilde's angst comes out strongly in that book as it does in The Canterville Ghost story. Definitely not a waste of time, and a pleasant way to spend a few hours after finishing a very emotional book. ( )

Pequeñas joyas literarias que el autor denominaba "estudios de prosa", pensadas tanto para niños y niñas como personas adultas.

Narrativa irlandese del XIX secolo. Racconti in lingua originale inglese.

The striking thing about Oscar Wilde's fairy tales is that they are timeless, universal, and yet completely original. In contrast, his other stories perfectly capture a particular segment of English society at a particular point in time as observed by Oscar Wilde. I don't remember reading the prose poems before, they might not have been in the collection I had previously read, but they are also outstanding. Overall, a perfect delight to read from beginning to end. ( )

It is always an iffy proposition when a book is a “complete” collection of any author’s works. You know you will face the challenge of seeing some of those earlier works that may not be worth sharing. And you can get a little tired of what is presented. I expected none of these with a collection of Oscar Wilde. I have not read much of his writing, but the few pieces I have read were full of his signature wit in the midst of good story telling.

Oh, had I only listened to my internal warnings.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this collection, but for one or two exceptions, has no value. It seems to serve no purpose other than to completely chronicle Wilde’s writings. In other words, there is little here worth reading. It begins with a collection of childlike tales. “The Happy Prince” is somewhat famous. And it is…okay. But it sets the tone for so much of these pieces. Maudlin, teaching lessons with a sledgehammer, boring the reader. It continues that way story after story.

Then, a little past half-way in the book, comes the story “Lord Author Savile’s Crime”, the story of a man who lets his life change because of the predictions of a palm reader. It has the Wilde wit. It has a story worth reading. It has an ending that…well, that isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty darn good. Everything I had been expecting. A sign that things are about to turn.

A false sign. Yes, “The Canterville Ghost” is decent, but from there on up it is downhill all the way. At the end, just when you think it can’t get any worse, there is a collection of “Poems in Prose” (which should warn you that there is nice writing but nothing else) and the appendix containing a fragment of a piece and a scenario for a possible play that may not have even been written by Wilde. That appendix is the detail that tells the story of the whole.

But for two stories, the collection holds nothing. A useless exercise in completeness

And now a word about footnotes. This book contains the most meaningless, useless footnotes I have ever seen. I have no idea how the editor decided on which words/phrases to define. But most can be understood in context – that is, the ones that need any explanation. A significant majority are commonly understood terms that do not warrant additional definitions. A worthless distraction from a collection that should have benefited from distractions. ( )