The Wit & Wisdom of Oscar Wilde: A Treasury of Quotations Anecdotes and Repartee

About this book

In The Wit & Wisdom of Oscar Wilde Ralph Keyes has captured the verbal flair that delighted Wildes contemporaries. This definitive compilation includes materials not only from Wildes better-known works but also his more obscure reviews letters and appearances in friends memoirs. It incorporates anecdotes that illustrate Wildes knack for repartee: When a journalist said that he never discussed subjects on which he didnt know the facts Wilde observed "That must limit your conversation frightfully." At the heart of The Wit & Wisdom of Oscar Wilde are Wildes best sayings. Some are witty: "Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality." Others are caustic: "Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty." Still more show genuine wisdom: "Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friends success." Oscar Wilde is as popular with readers today as he was in his own era; The Wit & Wisdom of Oscar Wilde shows why. His words in this book remain fresh alive and electric. They stride off the page to demand that we pay attention not just because he was clever but because he was wise. "For all of their verbal hijinks " Ralph Keyes writes in his introduction "many of Wildes observations displayed real perception. Amid the glitter of his wit lay nuggets of insight." By winnowing Oscar Wildes best work into one volume Keyes has given us a primer of one of historys greatest personalities and most original thinkers.