PART ONE:THE WRITER AND HIS SETTING 1
Chronology 3
1 BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT 13
Family life:Lady Wilde and Mrs Oscar Wilde 13
Ireland 21
Homosexuality 28
The myth of Wilde 35
PART TWO:AESTHETIC AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 43
2 CRITICAL WRITINGS 45
Lectures 45
Journalism 48
The Woman's World 49
'The Soul of Man Under Socialism' 51
Critical dialogues 56
3 THEATRE PRACTICE AND INNOVATION 63
PART THREE:CRITICAL SURVEY 73
4 POETRY 75
Poems(1881) 75
The Ballad of Reading Gaol(1898) 75
5 SHORT FICTION 87
The Happy Prince 88
The House of Pomegranates 91
Aestheric criticism 94
Aestheric prose:'The Fisherman and his Soul' 97
Newspaper fiction:Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories 100
6 THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY 111
7 SALOME,SALOME,AND SYMBOLIST THEATRE 131
8 THE SOCIAL COMEDIES 157
Lady Windermere's Fan 157
A Woman of No Importance 170
An Ideal Husband 182
The Importance of Being Earnest 192
9 LETTERS 207
'De Profundis' 208
On prison reform 214
PART FOUR:REFERENCE SECTION 219
10 WILDE AND HIS CIRCLE 221
Gazetteer 231
Short glossary of critical terms 235
Further reading 238
INDEX 244
List of illustrations 27
Oscar Wilde in March 1892 frontispiece 27
Front cover of the Police News,4 Mav 1895 27
Front cover of the Sale Catalogue,24 April 1895 31
Caricature of Wilde,Punch,95 June 1881 36
Helena in Troas,Hengler's Circus,London,May 1886 67
Cover design by Charles Ricketts for A House of Pomegranates,1891 95
The Dancer's Reward,by Aubrey Beardsley,1894 154
Costume sketches for An Ideal Husband,Queen,12 January 1895 184
George Alexander as Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest,St James's Theatre,London,1909 200
Jacob Epstein's sphinx monument for Oscar Wilde's tomb at the Père Lachaise Cemetery,Paris,1993 234