Complete Illustrated Oscar Wilde - Hardcover

Oscar Wilde,Oscar Wilde

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0753709139 ISBN 13: 9780753709139

Publisher: Octopus Publishing Group, 2004

Synopsis

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1907. Excerpt: ... FIRST ACT SCENE The octagon room at Sir Robert Chilterris house in Grosvenor Square. The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests. At the top of the staircase stands Lady Chiltern, a woman of grave Greek beauty, about twenty-seven years of age. She receives the guests as they come up. Over the well of the staircase hangs a great chandelier with wax lights, which illumine a large eighteenthcentury French tapestry -- representing the Triumph of Love, from a design by Boucher-- that is stretched on the staircase wall. On the right is the entrance to the music-room. The sound of a string quartette is faintly heard. The entrance on the left leads to other receptionrooms. MRS. MARCHMONT and LADY BASILDON, two very pretty women, are seated together on a Louis Seize sofa. They are types of exquisite Act L fragility. Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm. Watteau would have loved to paint themJ MRS. MARCHMONT Going on to the Hartlocks' to-night, Margaret? LADY BASILDON I suppose so. Are you? MRS. MARCHMONT Yes. Horribly tedious parties they give, don't they? LADY BASILDON Horribly tedious! Never know why I go. Never know why I go anywhere. MRS. MARCHMONT I come here to be educated. LADY BASILDON Ah! I hate being educated! MRS. MARCHMONT So do I. It puts one almost on a level with the commercial classes, doesn't it? But dear Gertrude Chiltern is always telling me that I should have some serious purpose in Act I. life. So I come here to try to find one. LADY BASILDON [Looking round through her lorgnette^ I don't see anybody here to-night whom one could possibly call a serious purpose. The man who took me in to dinner talked to me about his wife the whole time. MRS. MARCHMONT How very trivial of him! LADY BASILDON Terribly trivial! What did your man talk about? MRS. MARCHmoNT A...

About this title

About the Author:

Oscar Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, his only novel (The Picture of Dorian Gray), his plays, and the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.

About this edition

• Publisher: Octopus Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0753709139
• ISBN 13: 9780753709139
• Binding: Hardcover