The Nightingale and the Rose & The Sphinx Without a Secret

by Oscar Wilde

In the melancholy story The Nightingale and the Rose, Oscar Wilde turns to the superficiality of society and man, a theme that also reappears in the novel for which he is perhaps best known today, The Picture of Dorian Gray. The shory story is considered a response to the H.C. Andersen's saga The Nightingale. Common to the stories is the critique of the authors' contemporaries, but Wilde objects to Andersen's view of sacrifice and his preference for the natural over the artificial and allows his story to take a completely different turn.

Another sample of Oscar Wilde's short prose can be found in The Spinx Without a Secret, the story of a woman who seemingly harbours a dark secret.

Genres: Classics, Short Stories, Fiction, Fairy Tales

24 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1888

About the author

Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie 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 his criminal conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts.
Wilde's parents were Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. In his youth, Wilde learned to speak fluent French and German. At university, he read Greats; he demonstrated himself to be an exceptional classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. He became associated with the emerging philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.
Wilde tried his hand at various literary activities: he wrote a play, published a book of poems, lectured in the United States and Canada on "The English Renaissance" in art and interior decoration, and then returned to London where he lectured on his American travels and wrote reviews for various periodicals. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress and glittering conversational skill, Wilde became one of the best-known personalities of his day. At the turn of the 1890s, he refined his ideas about the supremacy of art in a series of dialogues and essays, and incorporated themes of decadence, duplicity, and beauty into what would be his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). Wilde returned to drama, writing Salome (1891) in French while in Paris, but it was refused a licence for England due to an absolute prohibition on the portrayal of Biblical subjects on the English stage. Undiscouraged, Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, which made him one of the most successful playwrights of late-Victorian London.
At the height of his fame and success, while An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) were still being performed in London, Wilde issued a civil writ against John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry for criminal libel. The Marquess was the father of Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. The libel hearings unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and criminal prosecution for gross indecency with other males. The jury was unable to reach a verdict and so a retrial was ordered. In the second trial Wilde was convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour, the maximum penalty, and was jailed from 1895 to 1897. During his last year in prison he wrote De Profundis (published posthumously in abridged form in 1905), a long letter that discusses his spiritual journey through his trials and is a dark counterpoint to his earlier philosophy of pleasure. On the day of his release, he caught the overnight steamer to France, never to return to Britain or Ireland. In France and Italy, he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life.

Reviews

[John Hatley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two short, bittersweet tales of love by one of Britain's greatest authors.

[Tone · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Nightingale and the Rose is easily a 5/5
The sphinx without a secret is more an 3/5
Both beautiful, but the Nightingale has a special place in my heart

[Regitze Xenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jeg kan væsentligt bedre lide “Nattergalen og rosen” end “Sfinxen uden hemmeligheder”.

[Inês · Rating 4 out of 5]

A primeira história foi mais gira que a segunda. A ler de facto fiquei a pensar que já a tinha lido antes mas depois descobri que foi a resposta a um conto de H.C. Andersen e tudo fez sentido. Gostei muito da forma de escrita dele, quando li o retrato de dorian gray não dei tanta atenção como deveria ter dado, talvez

[Ella Lindevall · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Nightingale and the Rose 5⭐️ lätt. The Sphinx Without a Secret 2-3⭐️

[Jonathan Lindeblad · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Nightingale and the Rose: ⭐️⭐️
The Sphinx Without a Secret: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Sofie Jonsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Nightingale and the Rose: 5 stars
The Sphinx Without a Secret: 3 stars

[Hildegard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Så flot skrevet. Wow.

[Lærke Nystrup · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nattergalen og rosen 4,5⭐
Sfinksen uden hemmeligheder 2⭐

[charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

i also should be studying metaphisycs.

[Pips · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always, The Nightingale and The Rose touched me profoundly and saddened me as much as when I read it when I was young.
The idea of short stories in a box is very nice and the selection of authors is great. This set makes for a perfect gift to introduce someone into literature.

[Frida Funk · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The nightingale and the rose" is one of my favorite stories written by Wilde, and one of my favorite short stories over all. It's a beautiful book and I enjoy the addition of the second short story as well even though it's not as captivating as the first.