Oscar Wilde

I really need to read more, a friend of mine bought Em a book of children's stories by Oscar Wilde, now if at that time I had to think off the top of my head what stories Oscar Wilde wrote I wouldn't have been able to tell you.  Then when I picked up the book to read Em a story I saw "The Happy Prince" and remembered it from my childhood, our English teacher would read us stories like this in class.

I have a new appreciation for these stories now, they are brilliant and the softie that I am, when I read the stories to Em I have to fight back the tears because a lot of them are just so sad, especially "The Nightingale and the Rose", which is about love and how a nightingale tries to help a young man win the love of his life by creating a red rose using the blood from his heart, the nightingale dies, the young man picks the red rose to take to his love to ask her to go with him to the dance, yet she refuses because the young man is not of aristocratic blood.  So the Nightingale's death was all in vain, so sad.

The three stories I can think of right now that I loved reading were:

The Selfish Giant

The Happy Prince

The Nightingale and the rose

Definitely a book worth having on your book shelf.

Some interesting Facts about Oscar Wilde(Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, 16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) 

• He was born in Dublin, his mother was a writer and his father in the medical profession, he attending Trinity College and later Magdalen College at Oxford university.
• In 1884 he married Constance Lloyd and they had 2 sons she was from a wealthy family.
• He is said to have been bisexual but mainly homosexual.  He went on trial for his homosexuality and was sentenced to 2 years hard labour.
• After Oscar's downfall, his wife Constance took on the name Holland for herself and her 2 boys.
• He was a Socialist.
• Although a proficient and versatile writer, Wilde only wrote one novel during his lifetime: “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” published in 1891.
• Went on a lecture tour throughout the United States, London and Canada to teach aesthetic values in 1879.
• Regarded as one of the greatest playwrights of the Victorian Era, Wilde wrote and produced nine plays. 
• Nine biographies have been written on Wilde since his death, one of them by his grandson, Merlin Holland, in 1997.
• Several biographical films, television series and stage plays have been produced on the life of Oscar Wilde since 1960.