Concise and illuminating articles explore Oscar Wilde's life and work in the context of the turbulent landscape of his time.

Preface; Chronology; An appreciation: Oscar Wilde: the art of the somdomite Mark Ravenhill; Part I. Placing Wilde: 1. Son and parents: Speranza and Sir William Wilde Sean Ryder; 2. Wilde's Dublin; Dublin's Wilde Jerusha McCormack; 3. Oxford, Hellenism, male friendship Philip E. Smith, II; 4. An aesthete in America Leon Litvak; 5. Wilde's London Matt Cook; 6. Wilde and Paris John Stokes; Part II. Aesthetic and Critical Contexts: 7. Wilde's poetic traditions: from Aristophanes' Clouds to The Ballad of Reading Gaol Joseph Bristow; 8. William Morris and the house beautiful Marcus Waithe; 9. Wilde and British art Richard Dorment; 10. Aubrey Beardsley and Salome Susan Owens; 11. Between two worlds and beyond them: John Ruskin and Walter Pater John Paul Riquelme; 12. Wilde, Henry James, and the fate of aestheticism Michèle Mendelssohn; 13. Style at the fin de siècle: aestheticist, decadent, symbolist Ellis Hanson; 14. Poisoned by a book: the lethal aura of The Picture of Dorian Gray Peter Raby; 15. Rewriting farce Kerry Powell; 16. Bernard Shaw and 'Hibernian drama' Anthony Roche; 17. Wilde, the fairy tales, and the oral tradition Jarlath Killeen; Part III. Cultural and Historical Contexts: Ideas, Iterations, Innovations: 18. Oscar Wilde's crime and punishment: fictions, facts, and questions Merlin Holland; 19. Wilde and evolution David Clifford; 20. Dandyism and late-Victorian masculinity James Eli Adams; 21. Oscar Wilde and the New Woman Margaret D. Stetz; 22. Wilde and socialism Josephine Guy; 23. Wilde and Christ Jan-Melissa Schramm; 24. Aestheticism Ruth Livesey; 25. Journalism Mark W. Turner; 26. Censorship of the stage: writing on the edge of the allowed Helen Freshwater; 27. Feminism Barbara Caine; 28. Wilde and the law H. G. Cocks; Part IV. Reception and Afterlives: 29. Reception and performance history of The Importance of Being Earnest Joseph Donohue; 30. Reception and performance history of Wilde's 'society plays' Sos Eltis; 31. A short history of Salome Steven Price; 32. Wilde and stage design: some deductions, appraisals and selected instances Richard Cave; 33. Wilde life: Oscar on film Oliver S. Buckton; 34. Wilde and performativity Lynn Voskuil; 35. Wilde and his editors Russell Jackson; 36. Wilde's texts, contexts and The Portrait of Mr W. H. Ian Small; Further reading.