Renowned for his poetry, plays, essays, and conversational skills, Oscar Wilde also wrote delightfully entertaining works of short fiction. This volume includes four of his finest. Most celebrated is The Canterville Ghost, an engaging, comical tale centering around the ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville, who for some 300 years had terrorized the residents and employees of Canterville Chase. When the manor is bought by the Otises, an American family that refuses to believe in such "supernatural" nonsense, hilarious results ensue.
Three other stories include "The Sphinx Without a Secret," a tale of an enigmatic woman who carries the key to a mystery with her to the grave; "The Model Millionaire," a charming story of a "delightful, ineffectual young man with a perfect profile and no profession"; and "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime." Rounding out the volume are Wilde's lyrical Poems in Prose: "The Artist," "The Doer of Good," "The Disciple," "The Master," "The House of Judgment," and "The Teacher of Wisdom."
These diverting works offer general readers and devotees of the author a generous sampling of the wit, whimsy, and imaginative gusto of one of the 19th century's most scintillating masters of the English language.