The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde

• List of illustrations and acknowledgements; Notes on contributors; Preface; Chronology; Part I. Context: 1. Biography and the art of lying Merlin Holland; 2. Wilde and the Victorians Regenia Gagnier; 3. Wilde and the Dandyism of the senses Stephen Calloway; Part II. Wilde's Work: 4. Wilde as poet Karl Beckson and Bobby Fong; 5. Wilde the journalist John Stokes; 6. Wilde as critic and theorist Lawrence Danson; 7. Wilde's fiction(s) Jerusha McCormack; 8. Distance, death, and desire in Salome Joseph Donahue; 9. Wilde's comedies of society Peter Raby; 10. The Importance of Being Earnest Russell Jackson; Part III. Themes and Influences: 11. A verdict of death: Oscar Wilde, actresses, and Victorian women Kerry Powell; 12. 'A Complex, Multiform Creature' - Wilde's sexual identities Joseph Bristow; 13. Wilde's plays: some lines of influence Richard Allen Cave; 14. Wilde on stage Joel Kaplan; 15. Oscar Wilde: the resurgence of lying Declan Kiberd; Bibliography; Index.

'The Cambridge Companion is successful in that it acts as a good guide for scholar and amateur alike to the diversity and complexity of Wilde's work and to the research currently being carried out by scholars on Wilde. Raby does a good job of balancing all the different research interests of the essayists without giving undue weight to any one view, or to any one aspect of Wilde's œuvre. This book offers an essential guide to Wilde scholarship.' The Wildean