Those whom the gods love grow young. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854-1900), one of Ireland's most beloved writers, was a playwright, poet, novelist and author of fairy stories and political essays. A complex man with many sides, he was both a revolutionary thinker and a flamboyant dandy and man about town. His wit and razor-sharp observation made him the toast of society on both sides of the Atlantic before scandal and notoriety stripped him of his position and his freedom. Best-Loved Oscar Wilde gathers a selection of Wilde's celebrated writing, chosen and introduced by John Wyse Jackson.
Author Biography:
John Wyse Jackson was born in Kilkenny in 1953, and educated in Dublin. His previous works on Oscar Wilde are Aristotle at Afternoon Tea: the Rare Oscar Wilde and Wilde about St Louis, an account of Oscar’s two days in the American city in 1882. Other books, either solo or in collaboration, include Myles Before Myles: a Selection of the Earlier Writings of Flann O’Brien, James Joyce's Dubliners: An Annotated and Illustrated Edition, Phenolphthalein: A Fictional Quest for the Eighth Plot, John Stanislaus Joyce: The Life of James Joyce’s Father, Flann O’Brien at War, We All Want to Change the World: A Life of John Lennon, Dublin: Poetry of Place and, with the Ulster artist Hector McDonnell, Ireland’s Other Poetry: Anonymous to Zozimus, Ulster’s Other Poetry and Dublin’s Other Poetry.
An occasional contributor to the Sunday Times, New Statesman, Spectator etc., and to numerous Irish publications, John has written, lectured and broadcast on various matters in Ireland, Britain and the United States. For many years he was joint owner/manager of John Sandoe’s Bookshop in Chelsea, London, before returning to Ireland in 2003 with his wife, Ruth, and their children. Currently he is generally to be found in Zozimus Bookshop (www.zozimusbookshop.com), with a large secondhand and antiquarian stock at 86 Main Street, Gorey, County Wexford, where he hosts a regular Ulysses study group and publishes the occasional book, usually of local interest.
Emma Byrne is a graphic designer and artist. She is a graduate of Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. She has won numerous awards for her design including The IDI (Irish Design Institute) Graduate Designer of the Year, the IDI Promotional Literature Award for her work on Brown Morning, and a Children’s Books Ireland Bisto Merit Award for her work on Something Beginning With P: New Poems from Irish Poets. She has illustrated many books, including Best-Loved Oscar Wilde, Best Loved Yeats, The Most Beautiful Letter in the World by Karl O’Neill, a special edition of Ulysses by James Joyce, and A Terrible Beauty by Mairéad Ashe Fitzgerald. She lives in a thatched house in Co. Wexford.
