The Complete Short Fiction

by Oscar Wilde

  In the century since Wilde’s short stories were first published, literary critics have had little to say about them: either they are dismissed as juvenilia, or they are simply overlooked. However, many of the themes and character-types so well known from Wilde’s comedies were first established in the stories. Like his drama the stories are inhabited by witty dandies who keep their social world at a distance with a well-turned epigram, by the imperious dowagers who run London Society and by innocents who suffer for their honesty in a corrupt world. In the stories we see Wilde developing the parodic style that the plays were to make famous. The stories also reveal his early interest in the devices of melodrama, the ability of paradox to shock the reader and the power of irony to subvert stock literary forms. Most importantly, the stories are also the first expression of Wilde’s preoccupation with the oppositions that were to dominate his life and thought. They include love and desire; art and life; sincerity and insincerity; innocence and sin; honesty and deceit; altruism and greed; self-sacrifice and self-aggrandizement. Wilde spent the years between 1889 and 1895, the main creative period of his life, trying to overturn and revalue the basis of these oppositions and the moral and social values which gave them force. In his own life, Wilde tragically failed in this ambition; but the fiction, by contrast and despite the negativism of Macmillan’s anonymous reader, has proved remarkably successful.

  Notes to the Introduction

  1 I also print as an appendix one fugitive text by Wilde; see ‘A Note on the Texts’.

  2 The reader’s report survives in the Macmillan archive in the British Library. See Macmillan Add. 5594; 16 Feb. 1888.

  3 The unpublished sequence of letters is housed in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, The University of California at Los Angeles (ALS W67126 W6721: 1894. Sept? 27).

  4 Letter to Ross (c 1888), also in the Clark Library; published in Ian Small, Oscar Wilde Revalued: An Essay on New Materials and Methods of Research (Greensboro, NC, 1993), p. 45.

  5 Vyvyan Holland, Time Remembered (1966), pp. 11–12.

  6 Wilde, De Profundis (letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, Jan–March. 1897) in The Letters of Oscar Wilde, ed. Sir Rupert Hart-Davis (London, 1963), p. 470.

  7 Ibid. 475.

  8 ‘Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young’, in The Oxford Authors: Oscar Wilde, ed. Isobel Murray (Oxford, 1989), p. 573.

  Further Reading

  Biography

  Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde (London, 1987).

  Merlin Holland, The Wilde Album (1997).

  E. H. Mikhail, ed., Oscar Wilde: Interviews and Recollections 2 vols. (London, 1979).

  H. Montgomery Hyde, The Trials of Oscar Wilde (London, 1948).

  Richard Pine, Oscar Wilde (Dublin, 1983).

  Editions

  The Picture of Dorian Gray, ed. Donald E. Lawler (New York, 1988).

  Lady Windermere’s Fan, ed. Ian Small (London, 1980).

  A Woman of No Importance, ed. Ian Small (London, 1993)

  An Ideal Husband, ed. Russell Jackson (London, 1993).

  The Importance of Being Earnest and Outer Plays, ed. Richard Allen Cave (Harmondsworth, 2000)

  The Importance of Being Earnest, ed. Russell Jackson (London, 1980; revd edn, 1993).

  Vera; Or, the Nihilists, ed. Frances Miriam Reed (Dyfed, 1989).

  Oscar Wilde: Poems and Poems in Prose (The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde, Vol. I), eds. Bobby Fong and Karl Beckson (Oxford, 2000).

  Oscar Wilde’s Oxford Notebooks, eds. Philip E. Smith, H, and Michael S. Helfand (New York, 1989).

  Isobel Murray, ed., The Oxford Authors: Oscar Wilde (Oxford, 1989).

  Robert Ross, ed., The First Collected Edition of the Works of Oscar Wilde (London, 1908–22).

  Collections of Criticism

  Karl Beckson, ed., Oscar Wilde: The Critical Heritage (London, 1970).

  Richard Ellmann, ed., Oscar Wilde: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1969; repr., 1986). Regenia Gagnier, ed., Critical Essays on Oscar Wilde (New York, 1991).

  Peter Raby, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde (Cambridge, 1997).

  Willliam Tydeman, ed., Wilde: Comedies (London, 1982).

  Criticism

  Karl Beckson, The Oscar Wilde Encyclopedia (New York, 1998).

  Alan Bird, The Plays of Oscar Wilde (London, 1977).

  Regenia Gagnier, Idylls of the Marketplace: Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public (London, 1987).

  Josephine M. Guy and Ian Small, Oscar Wilde’s Profession: Writing and the Culture Industry in the Late Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 2000).

  Norbert Kohl, Oscar Wilde: The Works of a Conformist Rebel (Gambridge, 1991).

  Christopher Nassaar, Into The Demon Universe: A Literary Exploration of Oscar Wilde (New Haven, Conn., 1974).

  Kerry Powell, Oscar Wilde and the Theatre of the 1890s (Cambridge, 1990).

  Peter Raby, Oscar Wilde (Cambridge, 1988).

  Rodney Shewan, Oscar Wilde: Art and Egotism (London, 1977).

  Alan Sinfield, The Wilde Century (London, 1994).

  Letters

  The Letters of Oscar Wilde, ed., Rupert Hart-Davis (London, 1963).

  More Letters of Oscar Wilde, ed., Rupert Hart-Davis (London, 1985).

  The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, eds. Merlin Holland and Rupert Hart-Davis (London, 2000).

  Bibliography

  Ian Fletcher and John Stokes, ‘Oscar Wilde’, in Anglo-Irish Literature: A Review of Research, ed. Richard J. Finneran (New York, 1976), 48–137.

  Ian Fletcher and John Stokes, ‘Oscar Wilde’, in Recent Research on Anglo-Irish Writers: A Supplement to Anglo-Irish Literature: A Review of Research, ed. Richard J. Finneran (New York, 1983), 21–47.

  Stuart Mason, [C. S. Millard], A Bibliography of Oscar Wilde (London, 1914)

  E. H. Mikhail, Oscar Wilde: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism (London, 1978).

  Ian Small, Oscar Wilde: Recent Research (Gerrards Cross, Bucks., 2000).

  –, Oscar Wilde Revalued: An Essay on New Materials and Methods of Research (Greensboro, NC, 1993).

  A Note on the Texts

  The present edition prints the first book-version of the stories contained in The Happy Prince and Other Tales (London: David Nutt, 1888), A House of Pomegranates (London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., 1891), and Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime (London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., 1891). In all three cases there were very few editions in Wilde’s lifetime. There were only two of The Happy Prince; A House of Pomegranates was printed in only one edition, and unsold copies of it were remaindered around the time of Wilde’s death. Lord Arthur Sarnie’s Crime, too, was printed in only one British and one American edition. In most cases, and in keeping with much nineteenth-century writing practice, the first publication of the stories had in fact been in the periodical press. However, the argument for reprinting the stories as they were collected in book-form is two-fold. In the first instance, the act of collecting, arranging and revising the stories represented an artistic judgement and reveals Wilde’s mature attitude towards his texts. The second reason involves the pragmatics of nineteenth-century publishing. Generally speaking, once their work had passed out of their hands authors had little control over it; however, book publishing offered significantly more artistic and authorial control than the periodical press, which had to answer to much narrower constraints. Moreover, the three volumes of stories were reprinted in their book-form in the collected edition of Wilde’s works published by Robert Ross, his literary executor, and Ross clearly had access to authorial material not available to the modern editor. I have collated Ross’s edition with the first book editions; the only differences are of punctuation, but these have not been noted. As with Ross, in printing the first book editions I have made some silent corrections to obvious printers’ errors.

  This volume also reprints ‘The Portrait of Mr. W. H.’ and the ‘Poems in Prose’. The identity of both works presents the editor with a problem. ‘The Portrait of Mr. W. H.’ is an anom
alous text; it hovers between Wilde’s stories and his literary criticism (as it is represented in Intentions). The decision to include it here is based on what I have judged to be its basic narrative impetus, together with its clear relationship with popular sub-genres which Wilde explored in his other stories. The difficulty over categorizing the ‘Poems in Prose’ is similar in that they can be seen either as poems or prose-narratives. My decision to include them here is largely pragmatic: there is no modern edition of Wilde’s poems, and the ‘Poems in Prose’ (in their entirety) are relatively inaccessible for the general reader. Moreover, all are informed by a strong narrative structure and have a generic relationship with some of the stories.

  Unlike the volumes of stories, the texts for both ‘The Portrait of Mr. W. H.’ and the ‘Poems in Prose’ are taken from periodicals. (‘The Portrait of Mr. W. H.’ is from Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, July, 1889, and the six ‘Poems in Prose’ from The Fortnightly Review, July, 1894.) There is a second and much longer version of ‘The Portrait of Mr. W. H.’, which was printed posthumously. The reasons for not taking this work as base-text are two-fold. In the first instance it is much more literary criticism than prose fiction; more importantly, although there is clear evidence that Wilde wished to extend the original periodical essay of ‘The Portrait of Mr. W. H.’ into a book, we have no way of knowing whether the posthumous text in fact does represent that intention. (For details of this issue, see Horst Schroeder, Oscar Wilde, ‘The Portrait of Mr. W.H.’ – Its Composition, Publication and Reception, Braunschweig, 1984.)

  Finally I print one fugitive text as an appendix. It is a fragment of a hitherto unknown poem in prose, ‘Elder-tree’; the manuscript of it is in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library at the University of California, Los Angeles. It was first published in my Oscar Wilde Revalued (1993).

  The Happy Prince and Other Tales

  To Carlos Blacker1

  The Happy Prince

  High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt.

  He was very much admired indeed. ‘He is as beautiful as a weathercock,’ remarked one of the Town Councillors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes; ‘only not quite so useful,’ he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.

  ‘Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?’ asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon. ‘The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything.’

  ‘I am glad there is some one in the world who is quite happy,’ muttered a disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue.

  ‘He looks just like an angel,’ said the Charity Children1 as they came out of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks, and their clean white pinafores.

  ‘How do you know?’ said the Mathematical Master, ‘you have never seen one.’

  ‘Ah! but we have, in our dreams,’ answered the children; and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not approve of children dreaming.

  One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had met her early in the spring as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been so attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her.

  ‘Shall I love you?’ said the Swallow, who liked to come to the point at once, and the Reed made him a low bow. So he flew round and round her, touching the water with his wings, and making silver ripples. This was his courtship, and it lasted all through the summer.

  ‘It is a ridiculous attachment,’ twittered the other Swallows, ‘she has no money, and far too many relations;’ and indeed the river was quite full of Reeds. Then, when the autumn came, they all flew away.

  After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of his lady-love. ‘She has no conversation,’ he said, ‘and I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind.’ And certainly, whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtsies. ‘I admit that she is domestic,’ he continued, ‘but I love travelling, and my wife, consequently, should love travelling also.’

  ‘Will you come away with me?’ he said finally to her; but the Reed shook her head, she was so attached to her home.

  ‘You have been trifling with me,’ he cried, ‘I am off to the Pyramids. Good-bye!’ and he flew away.

  All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. ‘Where shall I put up?’ he said; ‘I hope the town has made preparations.’

  Then he saw the statue on the tall column. ‘I will put up there,’ he cried; ‘it is a fine position with plenty of fresh air.’ So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince.

  ‘I have a golden bedroom,’ he said softly to himself as he looked round, and he prepared to go to sleep; but just as he was putting his head under his wing a large drop of water fell on him. ‘What a curious thing!’ he cried, ‘there is not a single cloud in the sky, the stars are quite clear and bright, and yet it is raining. The climate in the north of Europe is really dreadful. The Reed used to like the rain, but that was merely her selfishness.’

  Then another drop fell.

  ‘What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?’ he said; ‘I must look for a good chimney-pot,’ and he determined to fly away.

  But before he had opened his wings, a third drop fell, and he looked up, and saw – Ah! what did he see?

  The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears, and tears were running down his golden cheeks. His face was so beautiful in the moonlight that the little Swallow was filled with pity.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said.

  ‘I am the Happy Prince.’

  ‘Why are you weeping then?’ asked the Swallow; ‘you have quite drenched me.’

  ‘When I was alive and had a human heart,’ answered the statue, ‘I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the Palace of Sans-Souci2 where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall, but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep.’

  ‘What, is he not solid gold?’ said the Swallow to himself. He was too polite to make any personal remarks out loud.

  ‘Far away,’ continued the statue in a low musical voice, ‘far away in a little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at a table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she is a seamstress. She is embroidering passion-flowers on a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen’s maids-of-honour to wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to this pedestal and I cannot move.’

  ‘I am waited for in Egypt,’ said the Swallow. ‘My friends are flying up and down the Nile, and talking to the large lotus-flowers. Soon they will go to sleep in the tomb of the great King. The King is there himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves.’

  ‘Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,’ said the Prince, ‘will you not stay with me for one night, and be my messenger? The boy is so thirsty, and the mother
so sad.’

  ‘I don’t think I like boys,’ answered the Swallow. ‘Last summer, when I was staying on the river, there were two rude boys, the miller’s sons, who were always throwing stones at me. They never hit me, of course; we swallows fly far too well for that, and besides, I come of a family famous for its agility; but still, it was a mark of disrespect.’

  But the Happy Prince looked so sad that the little Swallow was sorry. ‘It is very cold here,’ he said; ‘but I will stay with you for one night, and be your messenger.’

  ‘Thank you, little Swallow,’ said the Prince.

  So the Swallow picked out the great ruby from the Prince’s sword, and flew away with it in his beak over the roofs of the town.

  He passed by the cathedral tower, where the white marble angels were sculptured. He passed by the palace and heard the sound of dancing. A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. ‘How wonderful the stars are,’ he said to her, ‘and how wonderful is the power of love!’ ‘I hope my dress will be ready in time for the State-ball,’ she answered; ‘I have ordered passion-flowers to be embroidered on it; but the seamstresses are so lazy.’

  He passed over the river, and saw the lanterns hanging to the masts of the ships. He passed over the Ghetto, and saw the old Jews bargaining with each other, and weighing out money in copper scales. At last he came to the poor house and looked in. The boy was tossing feverishly on his bed, and the mother had fallen asleep, she was so tired. In he hopped, and laid the great ruby on the table beside the woman’s thimble. Then he flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy’s forehead with his wings. ‘How cool I feel,’ said the boy, ‘I must be getting better;’ and he sank into a delicious slumber.