SOURCE: Ericksen, Donald H. “The Stories.” In Oscar Wilde, pp. 53-9. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1977.

In the following excerpt, Ericksen surveys the major themes of the stories of Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories and asserts that Wilde's stories provide valuable insight into the development of his fiction and drama.

Oscar Wilde loved to tell stories. Hesketh Pearson, Wilde's biographer, tells of how dozens of tales would occur to him during the course of conversations, over a drink at parties, while watching a painter at work, or at any odd time.¹ But the effort to write them down was irksome to Wilde so that his three volumes of short stories represent only a sampling of his talent. That he had a genius for storytelling is unquestioned. That Wilde was pleased with his tales, especially the fairy tales, is clear from his letters; but there is little evidence that...