On a curious but productive tangent to his more serious work, Wilde produced two volumes of fairy tales that are delightful in themselves and provide insight into some of his serious social and artistic concerns. Some of these poems were successful, but his only enduring work in this genre is The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1896). Wilde published a volume of poems early in his career as a writer. This book gives a particularly 1890s perspective on the timeless theme of sin and punishment. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), is flawed as a work of art, but gained him much of his notoriety. His lasting literary fame resides primarily in four or five plays, one of which- The Importance of Being Earnest, first produced in 1895-is a classic of comic theater. This connection results as much from the lurid details of his life as from his considerable contributions to English literature. No name is more inextricably bound to the aesthetic movement of the 1880s and 1890s in England than that of Oscar Wilde.
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