Wilde, Oscar "Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast"

Wilde, Oscar "Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast" - 1946

This is only a short book of 52 pages. Easy to take along on short trips.

And what a lovely title. I suppose Oscar Wilde considered himself a very boring person at breakfast.

While this sounds like another one of his not-so-well-known writings, it is really a collection of his aphorisms, quotes, anecdotes, witticisms. A delight to read. Again and again.

After reading this, I would have wished to be friends with him. I'm sure we would have really liked each other.

One of my favourite quotes, still as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago, especially with regard to certain politics:
"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."

From the back cover:

"Wilde's celebrated witticisms on the dangers of sincerity, duplicitous biographers, the stupidity of the English - and his own genius.

'It would be unfair to expect other people to be as remarkable as oneself'. Oscar Wilde"

This is a "Penguin Little Black Classics" edition and it looks like there are lots of other authors who 

There is even a box set with the following description:

"A stunning collection of all 80 exquisite Little Black Classics from Penguin

This spectacular box set of the 80 books in the Little Black Classics series showcases the many wonderful and varied writers in Penguin Black Classics. From India to Greece, Denmark to Iran, the United States to Britain, this assortment of books will transport readers back in time to the furthest corners of the globe. With a choice of fiction, poetry, essays and maxims, by the likes of Chekhov, Balzac, Ovid, Austen, Sappho and Dante, it won't be difficult to find a book to suit your mood. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of the Penguin Classics list - from drama to poetry, from fiction to history, with books taken from around the world and across numerous centuries."

It would be worth getting.

Wilde, Oscar "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

Wilde, Oscar "The Picture of Dorian Gray" - 1890

I read this book many many years ago in German and always wanted to re-read it in the original. Now, I finally did it.

I love Oscar Wilde's plays, I read quite a few of them, even though I prefer watching plays. My favourite is probably "The Importance of Being Earnest" closely followed by "A Woman of No Importance".

Having also read quite a bit about his life, especially his biography "Constance" by Franny Moyle, I cannot help but think that there is a lot about Oscar Wilde in Dorian Gray.

The novel certainly raises a lot of questions and gives everyone a lot to think about. How shallow are we really? How vain? And what would we swap for eternal beauty?

The book is full of quotes that can be thrown into any conversation and whole discussions can start around them. One of my favourites:
"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face."

I would certainly put this on a list of books everyone should read, a list of books I would take to a desert island, a list of books that will stay with me forever. If you haven't read it, you definitely should.

From the back cover:

"When the exquisitely handsome Dorian Gray sees his portrait he dreams of remaining young forever while his painted image grows old and, in a sudden moment, he offers his soul in return for perpetual youth. While his beauty remains unblemished, the potrait begins to reflect the wildness and degredation of his soul as he surrenders to a worship of pleasure and infinite passion.
The Picture of Dorian Gray caused outrage when it was first published in 1890 and marked the onset of Oscar Wilde's own fatal reputation and eventual downfall. An evocative potrayal of London life and a powerful blast against the hypocrisies of Victorian polite society it has beconme one of Oscar Wilde's most celebrated works, full of the flamboyant wit for which he is justly renowned."

Wilde, Oscar "The Nightingale and the Rose

Wilde, Oscar "The Nightingale and the Rose. Short Stories" - 1891

I'm not a big fan of short stories. I'm also not a big fan of reading plays. But - I am a big fan of Oscar Wilde, so I couldn't resist reading this.

"She said that she would dance with me if I brought her red roses," cried the young Student; "but in all my garden there is no red rose."

That's how this little story begins. A Nightingale hears this and helps the student to find the rose. The story does not end how we might like but short stories seldom do. They have a message they want to send in just a few pages. And Oscar Wilde, being the perfect writer he was, manages this perfectly.

I read this in a collection of short stories by Oscar Wilde and the other ones were also quite good.

From the back cover:

"An allegorical fable of love, sacrifice and selfishness. As with all of Wilde's short stories it embodies strong moral values and is told with an effervescence akin to that of the 1001 nights.

It is the tale of a lovestruck student who must provide his lover with a red rose in order to win her heart. A nightingale overhearing his lament from a solitary oak tree is filled with sorrow and admiration all at once, and decides to help the poor young man.

She journeys through the night seeking the perfect red rose and finally comes across a rambling rose bush but alas, the bush has no roses to offer her. However, there is a way to MAKE a red rose, but with grave consequences."

Other works by Oscar Wilde here.

Moyle, Franny "Constance"

Moyle, Franny "Constance: The Tragic and Scandalous Life of Mrs. Oscar Wilde" – 2011

I love Oscar Wilde and I love biographies. So, when I discovered this biography about Oscar Wilde's wife, I didn't have to think twice. I just had to read it.

And I wasn't disappointed. I must say, I had no idea Oscar Wilde even had a wife. And children. Of course, once I knew, I could only imagine a tragedy. And so it was. The life of a woman was hard enough in the middle of the 19th century but being married to one of the most prominent people at the time and being involved in such a scandal must have been an insurmountable obstacle.

Franny Moyle describes Constance's life from the beginning to the end, her youth in poverty, her ascent into society after marrying Oscar and the inevitable fall after his secret life was unveiled. How much power a woman has when it comes to the task to prevent her loved ones from disaster. Constance has shown this to us.

If you are only remotely interested in Oscar Wilde and/or women's lives before ours, this is the book for you.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2025.

From the back cover:

"In the spring of 1895 the life of Constance Wilde changed irrevocably. Up until the conviction of her husband, Oscar, for homosexual crimes, she had held a privileged position in society. Part of a gilded couple, she was a popular children’s author, a fashion icon, and a leading campaigner for women’s rights. A founding member of the magical society The Golden Dawn, her pioneering and questioning spirit encouraged her to sample some of the more controversial aspects of her time. Mrs. Oscar Wilde was a phenomenon in her own right.

But that spring Constance’s entire life was eclipsed by scandal. Forced to flee to the Continent with her two sons, her glittering literary and political career ended abruptly. She lived in exile until her death.

Franny Moyle now tells Constance’s story with a fresh eye. Drawing on numerous unpublished letters, she brings to life the story of a woman at the heart of fin-de-siècle London and the Aesthetic movement. In a compelling and moving tale of an unlikely couple caught up in a world unsure of its moral footing, Moyle unveils the story of a woman who was the victim of one of the greatest betrayals of all time."

I also read: "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "A Woman of No Importance".

Wilde, Oscar "The Importance of Being Earnest"

Wilde, Oscar "The Importance of Being Earnest" - 1895

What a wonderful, humorous play. A hilarious satire. Jack pretends his name is Ernest, so he can be anonymous in town. All sorts of mix-ups evolve from this, one funny scene follows the other. I love it!

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Oscar Wilde's madcap farce about mistaken identities, secret engagements, and lovers entanglements still delights readers more than a century after its 1895 publication and premiere performance. The rapid-fire wit and eccentric characters of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' have made it a mainstay of the high school curriculum for decades."

Read also "The Picture of Dorian Gray", "A Woman of No Importance", "The Nightingale and the Rose" and the interesting biography about his wife "Constance".

Wilde, Oscar "A Woman of No Importance"

Wilde, Oscar "A Woman of No Importance" - 1893

Oscar Wilde has a strangely hilarious sarcastic humour, one can only admire how he handles any kind of situation in that weirdly funny way. Not my first Oscar Wilde, certainly also not my last. :-D

"A Woman of No Importance", the title itself is already so promising. We see Oscar Wilde's contemporary upper class whiling away their time. They play games, they go shooting, they dance, they gossip about other people. They have nothing to do, so they make up important issues. The characters are "as you expect them to be", their relationships the same. I have thoroughly enjoyed the sarcasm in this play.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Staged in 1893, when Wilde had already achieved fame, wealth and notoriety, A Woman of No Importance was another attempt to fuse comedy of manners with high melodrama. Gerald Arbuthnot is a young man on the make, with an American heiress and the post of secretary to the brilliant but dissolute Lord Illingworth within his reach. When he asks his mother to celebrate with them, it turns out that Illingworth is Gerald's father, who seduced and abandoned his mother twenty years earlier. Loyalty weighs heavier than ambition, and Gerald declines the association with Illingworth. This edition, which also analyses Wilde's various drafts and revisions of the play, argues that the playwright here continued to explore the rivalry between an older man and woman for the affection of a beautiful young man."

Another great play by Oscar Wilde is "The Importance of Being Earnest" and the interesting biography about his wife "Constance".