Oscar Wilde, now the subject of a major feature film starring Stephen Fry, declared to Andre Gide that 'I have put my genius into my life, all I have put into my works is my talents'. He was a virtuosic conversationalist and today we associate his witticisms, epigrams and shart repartee with Wilde the dramatist, for it is here in particular that he is seen lampooning the starchy morality of Victorian society.

This new selection drawn from Wilde's stories, novels, plays, features, reviews and letters provides an invaluable introduction and reference to Wilde the artist and the man. The full extent of his wit is on display here, together with the serious, reflective and often melancholy side to his character so eloquently expressed in 'De Profundis' and 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'.