Oscar Wilde

The necklace / Guy de Maupassant -- Butch minds the baby / Damon Runyon -- A tradition of eighteen hundred and four / Thomas Hardy -- Rip Van Winkle / Washington Irving -- Michael / William Wordsworth -- To build a fire / Jack London -- The celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County / Mark Twain -- The signalman / Charles Dickens -- Come again in the spring / Richard Kennedy -- In my indolence / Italo Svevo -- Mr. Higginbotham's catastrophe / Nathaniel Hawthorne -- Lochinvar / Sir Walter Scott -- The Griffin and the Minor Canon / Frank Stockton -- The elixir of Father Gaucher / Alphonse Daudet -- [Taste]( [Masque of the Red Death]( / Edgar Allan Poe -- The lady with the dog / Anton Chekhov -- The Schartz-Metterklume method / Saki (H.H. Munro) -- A lodging for the night / Robert Louis Stevenson -- The Canterville Ghost / Oscar Wilde.

Many of these stories for children are famous the world over. 'The Emperor's New Clothes', 'The Little Mermaid', 'The Ice Maiden', 'The Red Shoes', 'The Snow Queen', 'Thumbelina', 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier' and 'The Ugly Duckling' are as popular now as they ever were.

First included in Everyman's Library 1930. Reprinted, with slightly revised contents, 1975.

"The poet we call Martial, Marcus Valerius Martialis, lived by his wits in first-century Rome. Pounding the mean streets of the Empire's capital, he takes apart the pretensions, addictions, and cruelties of its inhabitants with perfect comic timing and killer punchlines. Social climbers and sex-offenders, rogue traders and two-faced preachers - all are subject to his forensic annihilations and often foul-mouthed verses. Packed with incident and detail, Martial's epigrams bring Rome vividly to life in all its variety; biting satire rubs alongside tender friendship, lust for life beside sorrow for loss. Gossipy, clever, and above all entertaining, they express amusement as much as indignation at the vices they expose."

Oscar Wilde's reputation has shifted dramatically during the twentieth century from outcast in the wake of his trials for homosexual offences, to martyr to the gay cause in the 1980s and '90s, to important figure in the history of writing in English. Ruth Robbins introduces Wilde through a focus on his manipulations of genre and sets Wilde's life and work in its literary and cultural context.

Weinig schrijvers uit de negentiende eeuw blijven zo fris en onaangetast door de tijd als Stendhal. Hij is bij uitstek de hartstochtelijke en uiterst persoonlijke verwoorder van het nieuwe levensgevoel aan het einde van de achttiende eeuw, die met de Franse revolutie en het rationalisme de doorbraak vormt van een nieuwe tijd. De enorme hoeveelheid autobiografisch materiaal die hij naliet - dagboeken, brieven, bespiegelingen, aforismen - heeft hij zelf eens de geschiedenis van mijn hart genoemd. Die geschiedenis vindt men direct en treffend terug in zijn brieven, waaruit Joyce & Co. een keuze gemaakt hebben. Zij geven een indringend beeld van Stendhals bezigheden, nieuwsgierigheid, neerslachtigheid en telkens weer opvlammende literaire en amoureuze bezetenheid. (Tekst achterplat)

"He had that rarest of all things, common sense." Oscar Wilde had a gift for delivering this common sense in sometimes pithy but always memorable statements. One of the world's most unforgettable authors, Oscar Wilde had a comment for any and every occasion, many of which are quoted here"--Provided by publisher.

01. Adventure of the Dying Detective by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 02. An Unexpected Result by Edward P. Roe 03. The [Purloined Letter]( by Edgar Allan Poe 04. The Stolen Bacillus by H. G. Wells 05. The Wind in the Willows, Chapters 3 and 4, by Kenneth Grahame 06. The Remarkable Rocket by Oscar Wilde 07. The Diamond Necklace by Guy De Maupassant 08. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald 09. The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan by Beatrix Potter 10. A Retrieved Reformation by O. Henry