Lord Sevile's Crime by Oscar Wilde

Written by Oscar Wilde

Narrated by Deaver Brown

A classic ironic, fascinating, charming Oscar Wilde story.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simply Magazine Inc.
• Release date: Jul 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781614961819

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet. Celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic for his wit, he is rumored to have informed a customs agent upon his arrival in America, “I have nothing to declare but my genius.” Wilde’s health and reputation were destroyed by his imprisonment for “gross indecency” in 1895, and he died in poverty a few years after his release. Today, his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and his play, The Importance of Being Earnest, are recognized as masterpieces of English literature.  

Reviews for Lord Sevile's Crime by Oscar Wilde

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this collection a mixed bag. Probably the best story is the only one I have read before: The Canterville Ghost (and my Project Gutenberg edition has illustrations!). I liked the title story, The Sphinx Without a Secret and A Model Millionaire all right but found the last story, The Portrait of Mr. W.H. dull and too long.I started listening to the Librivox recording (and did listen to it for The Sphinx Without a Secret) but discovered I had access to a recording narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi via Hoopla. I love Jacobi & he is a marvelous narrator but the Blackstone Audio edition has different contents! It had all of the stories in this Kindle edition except The Sphinx Without a Secret but also 5 additional stories.

[quondame · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The wry distanced tone in which these stories are composed and the consistent observations on the characters are mostly at odds with other tonal elements in these stories and the last is largely a frame around shards of Shakespeare's sonnets supporting the argument that they were addressed to a young actor who left Shakespeare's troupe but later returned. This is not rewarding for someone seeking a consistent mood from Oscar Wilde.

[tronella_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very amusing.

[meandmybooks-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Delicious fun! This is along the lines of “The Importance of Being Earnest” or “An Ideal Husband,” only in short story format rather than a play. Ridiculous, witty, and charming, this story adds a dire prediction and murder to the mix in the courtship of our frivolous and affectionate young couple. Oddly, it kept reminding me of that old Alec Guinness movie, “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” although that story ends rather differently. This is Number 59 in Penguin's Little Black Classics series, and is certainly one of my favorites in that collection!

[tmiddleton-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It seems to me that some here are not taking into account the potential for wider echoes, for deeper metaphors, contained within some of these stories, beyond the cute and clever word-play and emotional moral parables. There is, it seems to me for example, a rather blatant hint towards the end of “The Portrait of Mr W.H.” that, as wonderful as the plot's fabrication is, it is itself a particular shadow on a certain cave wall...

But perhaps its just my cataracts...

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Early in life she had discovered the important truth that nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion; and by a series of reckless escapades, half of them quite harmless, she had acquired all the privileges of a personality. She had more than once changed her husband; indeed, Debrett credits her with three marriages; but as she had never changed her lover, the world had long ago ceased to talk scandal about her.This book contains five short stories from the late 1880s. I read it a long time ago,and recently downloaded it from Project Gutenberg to re-read.My favourite is Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, whose protagonist is unbelievably gullible when he has his fortune read at a society party. The Canterville Ghost is the story of a mediaeval English ghost's encounter with a modern American family who torment him and do not respect him at all. It's fun, but seems more like a children's story than the other stories in the book.The Sphinx Without a Secret was my least favourite, being both dull and and forgettable.The Model Millionaire was enjoyable, but is another story that I had completely forgotten from the previous time I read it.In The Portrait of Mr. W. H., the characters discuss the evidence for Shakespeare's sonnets being dedicated to a young actor called Willie Hughes, and keep changing their minds about whether the theory is true or not. I found it amusing how their minds were swayed, as if it were impossible for more than one of them to believe in the Willie Hughes theory at any one time.