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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).
    â€“,
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 anomalous 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: