The Poems of Oscar Wilde Cosmopolitan series firsst buy edition 1916

Born: October 16, 1854, Westland Row, Dublin, Ireland
Died: November 30, 1900, Paris, France

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts in "one of the first celebrity trials", imprisonment, and early death from meningitis at age 46.
Oscar Wilde's best poetry deals with matters of the heart, ancient mythology and the misery of incarceration. Perhaps his most powerful and emotional poem is "The Ballad of Reading Goal" written while Wilde was in exile in France. Wilde was humiliated when sentenced to imprisonment for homosexual acts and whilst in jail he endured hard labor, mockery, and deprivation. After his release he was desperate to earn money to supplement his meager income and thus "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" was written, detailing the privations of the worst two years of his life.

This book is definitely an Antique collectible first edition with Cosmopolitan .the original paper warp is still there in a used condition , buy but the book itself looks as new in spite of its 115 years. The quality of the binding and the condition of the book are perfect , there is still a silk page marker . The book has 631 pages , the second part (from page 321 to the end) being mostly Wilde's judgment of the poets and Poetry in general , Wilde being there at his best role as a "critique ". A book to keep in your private library.