Drive Me Wilde!

-There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

-Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.

-Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.(Lady Windermere's Fan)

-When good Americans die they go to Paris. (The Portrait of Dorian Gray)

-It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

-To many, no doubt, he will seem blatant and bumptious, but we prefer to regard him as being simply British. (Pall Mall Gazette)

-I never play cricket. It requires one to assume such indecent postures.

-One must have some sort of occupation nowadays. If I hadn't my debts I shouldn't have anything to think about.(A Woman of No Importance)

-Duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself.(A Woman of No Importance)

-It is very easy to endure the difficulties of one's enemies. It is the successes of one's friends that are hard to bear.

-I have nothing to declare except my genius.(at New York customs)

-All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his. (The Importance of Being Earnest)

In high school, I totally had a crush on Oscar Wilde after reading his play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’.   So like I did with every dead artist newly discovered by my teenage heart (Elvis, John Lennon, William Shakespeare, Jim Morrison.  Huh-Come to think of it, I guess I kind of had a thing for dead guys back then.)- I quickly went out and bought a book of Oscar’s plays and the only novel he ever wrote ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’.

Wilde wrote plays that mocked high society.

And they loved him for it.

He was a masterful wit- stating the obvious, the absurd, and above all- the truth about the world with a clipped humor that remains unmatched by any other.

‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, however, touched on a truth that no one of the time was willing to acknowledge.   Homosexuality was illegal in England when the book was published, and the insinuations of romantic feelings between two men were denounced by the general public.  -Add into that Wilde’s philosophies on aestheticism and hedonism and you’ve got yourself a Molotov cocktail of controversy.

 The Daily Chronicle of 30 June 1890 suggested that Wilde's novel contained "one element...which will taint every young mind that comes in contact with it." and the book was banned from many major booksellers.

Today I’m offering up a FREE COPY of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’- considered today to be one of the greatest works of the time.  All you have to do is comment to be entered in the drawing.  And be sure to check out the other participants in the Banned Books Week Bloghop!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

*CQG*