PENGUIN CLASSICS : COMPLETE SHORT FICTION PB B FORMAT – OSCAR WILDE-IAN SMALL-IAN SMALL

Fairy tales, ghost stories, detective fiction and comedies of manners – the stories collected in this volume made Oscar Wilde s name as a writer of fiction, showing breathtaking dexterity in a wide range of literary styles. Victorian moral justice is comically inverted in Lord Arthur Savile s Crime and The Canterville Ghost , and society s materialism comes under sharp, humorous criticism in The Model Millionaire , while The Happy Prince and The Nightingale and the Rose are hauntingly melancholic in their magical evocations of selfless love. These small masterpieces convey the brilliance of Wilde s vision, exploring complex moral issues through an elegant juxtaposition of wit and sentiment.