Oscar Wilde in The Reading Room at Kitchen Sink Dramas

The Reading Room

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

This playwright, poet, novelist, wit and Aesthete may have been a forerunner of that twenty-first-century curse-the social celebrity. During his lifetime the interest in his scandalous personal life (eventually resulting in imprisonment for gross indecency) overshadowed his literary achievements. Wilde's comic plays, including The Importance of Being Earnest, acutely dissected the hypocrisy at the heart of fashionable upper class society, the same society to later condemn him. His short stories often show a gentler side to his humour; 'The Canterville Ghost' was first published serially in 1887 in Court and Society Review, a magazine for the leisured upper classes, and references some of his key literary influences, including the fairy tale and the Gothic novel. We can only wish that the so-called celebs of our own time were similarly blessed with such prodigious talent.