An entirely new kind of biography, Built of Books explores the mind and personality of Oscar Wilde through his taste in books This intimate account of Oscar Wilde's life and writings is richer, livelier, and more personal than any book available about the brilliant writer, revealing a man who built himself out of books. His library was his reality, the source of so much that was vital to his life. A reader first, his readerly encounters, out of all of life's pursuits, are seen to be as significant as his most important relationships with friends, family, or lovers. Wilde's library, which Thomas Wright spent twenty years reading, provides the intellectual (and emotional) climate at the core of this deeply engaging portrait. One of the book's happiest surprises is the story of the author's adventure reading Wilde's library. Reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges's fictional hero who enters Cervantes's mind by saturating himself in the culture of sixteenth-century Spain, Wright employs Wilde as his own Virgilian guide to world literature. We come to understand how reading can be an extremely sensual experience, producing a physical as well as a spiritual delight.

Like old friends whose charm and warmth never fade, Oscar Wilde's short stories have enchanted generations of readers, and occupy a special place in the heart of each new reader. Like luminous gems, they have lost none of their power to enthral and inspire; and in this beautifully illustrated edition, Stephen Fry presents these gems to shine anew.

»The Sphinx Without a Secret« is a short story by Oscar Wilde, originally published in 1891. OSCAR WILDE, born in 1854 in Dublin, died in 1900 in Paris, was an Irish prose writer, playwright, essayist, and poet. Wilde's significance as a symbol for persecuted homosexuals around the world is immeasurable. Wilde himself was sentenced to prison and hard labour, his works were boycotted, theatrical productions were shut down, and he was publicly vilified. The Picture of Dorian Gray [1890] is his most famous work.

Twelve-year-old Brian, ten-year-old Wren, and their father, Doc Wilde, risk their lives in a South American rainforest as they seek the eldest member of their famous family of adventurers, Grandpa, amidst a throng of alien frogs.

This compelling and unique fictional foray into American history follows a brilliantly conjured Wilde and his young black valet on a whirlwind tour across the country from high-society Newport to the deep south.

"The Selfish Giant" is a short fantasy story for children by the Irish author Oscar Wilde. The story's plot revolves around a giant who builds a wall to keep children out of his garden, but learns compassion from the innocence of the children. The short story contains significant religious imagery. The Selfish Giant owns a beautiful garden which has 12 peach trees and lovely fragrant flowers, in which children love to play after returning from the school. The Giant put a notice board "TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED". The garden falls into perpetual winter. One day, the giant is awakened by a linnet, and discovers that spring has returned to the garden, as the children have found a way in through a gap in the wall… It was first published in 1888 in the anthology The Happy Prince and Other Tales, which, in addition to its title story, also includes "The Nightingale and the Rose", “The Happy Prince”, "The Devoted Friend" and "The Remarkable Rocket".

For Wilde, as for many people, reading could be as powerful and transformative an experience as falling in love. He devoured books, talked books, luxuriated in books and lavished books on his friends- they played, too, a vital part in his seductions of young men. Oscar's Books tells the story of Wilde's life through his reading, from his childhood in Dublin, where he was nurtured on Celtic myth, Romantic poetry and Irish folklore; through his undergraduate years in which he built his intellect out of books; to prison, where his friends supplied him with literature which saved his sanity; to his final years in Paris where he consoled himself with old favourites such as Flaubert and Balzac. Fresh, utterly engaging and wholly original, Oscar's Books is an entirely new kind of biography.