Poems in Prose

Oscar Wilde wrote poems, plays and novels, and is best known for his play The Importance of Being Earnest and his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. POEMS IN PROSE, first published in The Fortnightly Review in July 1894, collects six short, or very short tales, beautifully written in Wilde’s inimitable style, whose religious and spiritual themes would have been shocking to its nineteenth-century readership. And even today, the key theme addressed in these stories, as to whether it really is possible to bring beauty or goodness to the world, when even the best-intended actions can lead to wholly unexpected and regrettable consequences, can leave the reader unsettled. This new edition features new digital typesetting, replicating the beautiful Doves Type of the early twentieth century, designed for the quality, hand-made, letterpress editions of a private press. Doves Type was made in only one size, the size used in this book.