There was something about him that amused me. Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off his hat with an air of gorgeous servility. He had greasy ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the center of a soiled shirt.

'A hideous Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was smoking a vile cigar. This is just one from the many in the (wonderful) Picture of Dorian Grey, When you overrun those arguments, they come the day after with the same arguments as the day before.'. When you overrun them today, they come tomorrow with the same arguments. That, like all underdogs, he was always looking for an even lower cur to kick.Īs it turns out, despite being able to recite that old chestnut, 'some of my best friends are Jewish', Wilde was deeply anti-semitic, a couple of quotes: You would think a man who lost everything because of the prejudice against his homosexuality might just not drop casual anti-semitism into what purports to be a children's story, wouldn't you? But perhaps he was so angry and bitter against Society that he could only see things from that viewpoint. I've always liked Oscar Wilde's prose, if not his drama, but I thought this was an exercise in hypocrisy, or perhaps it was just Oscar Wilde, locked out of the gates of the wealthy aristocracy, just venting his spleen on them.

He wrote a number of tales for children, but is perhaps best known for his 'Dorian Gray' (1890), 'Lady Windermere's Fan' (1892), 'The Importance of Being Earnest' (1895) and 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' (1896). Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was an Irish writer of great wit and talent who was born Oscar Fingall O'Flahertie Wills Wilde in 1854. This story of sacrifice and redemption is a parable for our time, as it was for that time more than a hundred years ago when Oscar Wilde first published this moving tale. He is moved by the prince's description of the helplessness and hopelessness he sees all around him, and agrees to stay with the prince and to assist him in bringing comfort to those in need. Now, a gilded statute set atop a high column, he can see all the wretchedness of the poor, the sick and the lonely who inhabit the great city where he stands.Ī swallow, hurrying to reach the warmth of Egypt before winter sets in, stops to rest between the feet of the Happy Prince. When he was alive, the Happy Prince lived in the Palace of Sans Souci, where sorrow was not allowed to enter, and where he knew only pleasure.

The happy prince book by oscar wilde