This volume is a compilation of Oscar Wilde's epigrams, paradoxes, and brief remarks drawn from his comedies, essays, fiction, reviews, and recorded conversation. Entries are typically grouped by subject - society, art, morals, marriage, America, education, fashion - rather than arranged as a continuous argument or a life. The pieces turn on reversal and definition: work and pleasure, sincerity and mask, the uses of idleness. A few longer extracts from the plays and from courtroom testimony sometimes appear beside one-line jokes. The book is an anthology of verbal display, not a biography and not a substitute for the complete works.
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7 SubjectsBound in gold plasticised cloth with a design in black by Beck. Green-yellow endleaves. Green-yellow or light-brown slipcase.
| Printing | Print Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1st Printing | 1997 | — |
| 2nd Printing | 1998 | — |
| 3rd Printing | 1999 | — |
| 4th Printing | 2001 | — |
| 5th Printing | 2002 | — |
| 6th Printing | 2003 | — |
| 7th Printing | 2005 | — |
| 8th Printing | 2006 | — |
| 9th Printing | 2007 | — |
| 10th Printing | 2009 | — |
| 11th Printing | 2010 | — |
| 12th Printing | 2012 | — |
| 13th Printing | 2013 | — |