Flamboyant and controversial, Oscar Wilde was a dazzling personality, a master of wit, and a dramatic genius whose sparkling comedies contain some of the most brilliant dialogue ever written for the English stage. Here in one volume are his immensely popular novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray; his last literary work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a product of his own prison experience; and four complete plays: Lady Windermeres Fan, his first dramatic success, An Ideal Husband, which pokes fun at conventional morality, The Importance of Being Earnest, his finest comedy, and Salom, a portrait of uncontrollable love originally written in French and faithfully translated by Richard Ellmann.Every selection appears in its entiretya marvelous collection of outstanding works by the incomparable Oscar Wilde, whos been aptly called a lord of language by Max Beerbohm.From the Paperback edition.