The Canterville Ghost

Oscar Wilde

Description

Originally published in two parts in “The Court and Society Review” (March, 1887), "The Canterville Ghost" is a comical short story written by Oscar Wilde. His first published story, it revolves around an American family who move into an English Castle. However, before long they realise that they share their new home with the ghost of a murderous English aristocrat. An incredible humorous play brimming with Wilde's trademark wit not to be missed by fans of his seminal work. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854–1900) was an Irish poet and playwright who became one of the most popular in London during the 1880s and 1890s. Well-known for his sharp wit and extravagant attire, Wilde was a proponent of aestheticism and wrote in a variety of forms including poetry, fiction, and drama. He was famously imprisoned for homosexual acts from 1895 to 1897 and died at the age of 46, just three years after his release. Other notable works by this author include: “Picture of Dorian Gray” (1890), “Salome” (1891), and “The Importance of Being Earnest” (1895). Fantasy and Horror Classics is proudly republishing this classic play now in a new edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 08 novembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781447480044
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The Canterville Ghost
Fantasy & Horror Classics
By
OSCAR WILDE

First published in 1887



Copyright © 2020 Fantasy and Horror Classics
This edition is published by Fantasy and Horror Classics, an imprint of Read & Co.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd. For more information visit www.readandcobooks.co.uk


Contents
Oscar Wilde
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII


Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. His parents were successful Dublin intellectuals, and Wilde became fluent in French and German early in life. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and subsequently won a scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was heavily influenced by John Ruskin and Walter Pate. Wilde proved himself to be an outstanding classicist. After university, he moved to London and became involved with the fashionable cultural and social circles of the day. At the age of just 25 he was well-known as a wit and a dandy, and as a spokesman for aestheticism—an artistic movement that emphasized aesthetic values ahead of socio-political themes—he undertook a lecture tour to the United States in 1882, before eventually returning to London to try his hand at journalism. It was also around this time that he produced most of his well-known sh ort fiction.
In 1891, Wilde published The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel. Reviewers criticised the novel's decadence and homosexual allusions, although it was popular nonetheless. From 1892, Wilde focussed on playwriting. In that year, he gained commercial and critical success with Lady Windermere's Fan, and followed it with the comedy A Woman of No Importance (1893) and An Ideal Husband (1895). Then came Wilde's most famous play, The Importance of Being Earnest – a farcical comedy which cemented his artistic reputation and is now seen as his masterpiece.
In 1895, the Marquess of Queensbury, who objected to his son spending so much time with Wilde because of Wilde's flamboyant behaviour and reputation, publicly insulted him. In response, Wilde brought an unsuccessful slander suit against him. The result of this inability to prove slander was his own trial on charges of sodomy, and the revealing to the transfixed Victorian public of salacious details of Wilde's private life followed. Wilde was found guilty and sentenced to two years of hard labour.
Wilde was released from prison in 1897, having suffered from a number of ailments and injuries. He left England the next day for the continent, to spend his last three years in penniless exile. He settled in Paris, and didn't write anymore, declaring “I can write, but have lost the joy of writing.” Wilde died of cerebral meningitis on in November of 1900, converting to Catholicism on h is deathbed.



THE CANTERVILLE GHOST
CHAPTER I
When Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, every one told him he was doing a very foolish thing, as there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted. Indeed, Lord Canterville himself, who was a man of the most punctilious honour, had felt it his duty to mention the fact to Mr. Otis when they came to di scuss terms.
‘We have not cared to live in the place ourselves,’ said Lord Canterville, ‘since my grandaunt, the Dowager Duchess of Bolton, was frightened into a fit, from which she never really recovered, by two skeleton hands being placed on her shoulders as she was dressing for dinner, and I feel bound to tell you, Mr. Otis, that the ghost has been seen by several living members of my family, as well as by the rector of the parish, the Rev. Augustus Dampier, who is a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. After the unfortunate accident to the Duchess, none of our younger servants would stay with us, and Lady Canterville often got very little sleep at night, in consequence of the mysterious noises that came from the corridor and t he library.’
‘My Lord,’ answered the Minister, ‘I will take the furniture and the ghost at a valuation. I come from a modern country, where we have everything that money can buy; and with all our spry young fellows painting the Old World red, and carrying off your best actresses and prima-donnas, I reckon that if there were such a thing as a ghost in Europe, we’d have it at home in a very short time in one of our public museums, or on the road as a show.’
‘I fear that the ghost exists,’ said Lord Canterville, smiling, ‘though it may have resisted the overtures of your enterprising impresarios. It has been well known for three centuries, since 1584 in fact, and always makes its appearance before the death of any member of our family.’
‘Well, so does the family doctor for that matter, Lord Canterville. But there is no such thing, sir, as a ghost, and I guess the laws of Nature are not going to be suspended for the British a ristocracy.’
‘You are certainly very natural in America,’ answered Lord Canterville, who did not quite understand Mr. Otis’s last observation, ‘and if you don’t mind a ghost in the house, it is all right. Only you must remember I warned you.’
A few weeks after this, the purchase was completed, and at the close of the season the Minister and his family went down to Canterville Chase. Mrs. Otis, who, as Miss Lucretia R. Tappan, of West 53rd Street, had been a celebrated New York belle, was now a very handsome, middle-aged woman, with fine eyes, and a superb profile. Many American ladies on leaving their native land adopt an appearance of chronic ill-health, under the impression that it is a form of European refinement, but Mrs. Otis had never fallen into this error. She had a magnificent constitution, and a really wonderful amount of animal spirits. Indeed, in many respects, she was quite English, and was an excellent example of the fact that we have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.