The Canterville Ghost and Other Stories

Book excerpt: Few authors are as closely associated with English wit as Oscar Wilde: the sharp-witted dandy, always ready with a cutting remark. His brilliant conversational skills made him famous even before he began his literary career. The stories in this volume showcase his drastic humour and scathing social critique. Among them, »The Model Millionaire« upends social hierarchies, and in »The Canterville Ghost,« ancient traditions meet modern times in the form of a vulgar and unsentimental American family, creating problems for a ghost that has had it too easy for centuries. OSCAR WILDE, born in 1854 in Dublin, died in 1900 in Paris, was an Irish prose writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Wilde's significance as a symbol for persecuted homosexuals around the world is immeasurable. Wilde himself was sentenced to prison and hard labour, his works were boycotted, theatrical productions were shut down, and he was publicly vilified. The Picture of Dorian Gray [1890] is his most famous work.