*3.5

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime - 4/5
The Canterville Ghost - 3/5
The Portrait of Mr. W.H. - 3.5/5
The Model Millionaire - 2/5
The Sphinx Without A Secret - 2/5
The Birthday of the Infanta - 2/5 ( )

Derek Jacobi has such a wonderful voice! I would give his narration an extra star but I had some issues with this audiobook. This collection of short stories has somewhat different contents than the Kindle public domain edition (which as I mentioned in my review of the Kindle book) so I will comment on the contents here briefly.

I got this audiobook from my library via Hoopla & that has 2 major disadvantages. Firstly, I can only access Hoopla by streaming so I can't listen to the audiobook on the go (annoying but I just switched temporarily to the Librivox edition for those times). Second, Hoopla audiobooks have no chapter markings or divisions of any kind. Thus it is extremely important to use the "bookmark" feature! Also, it is quite difficult to skip ahead to a different story. Because this audiobook had different contents than my Kindle, that was particularly annoying for this book as I was trying to listen to specific stories.

Regarding the stories themselves, I will only comment on those not included in the Kindle edition. Two of them I had read before & didn't listen to this time ("The Happy Prince" & "The Devoted Friend" both of which were in my Kindle edition of The Happy Prince and Other Stories) - I remember them as charming stories for children. Two others were new to me & I discovered them to be part of my Kindle edition of A House of Pomegranates: "The Young King" and "The Fisherman and His Soul". These two stories were both too moralizing for my tastes; both had a very strong religious component which reminded me that Wilde must have been raised Catholic (I don't know if he became "lapsed" as an adult but would suspect so). I preferred "The Young King" but neither held much appeal to me. ( )

3.5* I found this collection a mixed bag. Probably the best story is the only one I have read before: The Canterville Ghost (and my Project Gutenberg edition has illustrations!). I liked the title story, The Sphinx Without a Secret and A Model Millionaire all right but found the last story, The Portrait of Mr. W.H. dull and too long.

I started listening to the Librivox recording (and did listen to it for The Sphinx Without a Secret) but discovered I had access to a recording narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi via Hoopla. I love Jacobi & he is a marvelous narrator but the Blackstone Audio edition has different contents! It had all of the stories in this Kindle edition except The Sphinx Without a Secret but also 5 additional stories. ( )

Lord Arthur Saville, un joven acaudalado y de brillante porvenir; durante una fiesta un adivino le lee el futuro en las líneas de la mano y le pronostica un vuelco inesperado: el destino le conducirá a cometer un asesinato. La vida del protagonista se trastoca por completo después de semejante revelación, pero su carácter decidido y tenaz pronto le lleva a buscar una solución: decide posponer su inminente compromiso matrimonial para no perjudicar a su prometida y, tras cavilar detenidamente, llevar a cabo el crimen lo antes posible para “pasar página” y dejar atrás cuanto antes ese penoso deber. Por supuesto, sus planes no resultarán tan fáciles de acometer como él cree y los designios del destino pondrán más de una traba en el camino del noble.

I do truly love Oscar Wilde. This lovely little story, made me cringe and laugh, almost in the same moment. It has that Wilde wit scattered all through it, and the idea of self-fulling prophecy, which is probably the most common kind.

Were we no better than chessmen, moved by an unseen power, vessels the potter fashions at his fancy, for honour or for shame? His reason revolted against it, and yet he felt that some tragedy was hanging over him, and that he had been suddenly called upon to bear an intolerable burden. Actors are so fortunate. They can choose whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears. But in real life it is different. Most men and women are forced to perform parts for which they have no qualifications. Our Guildensterns play Hamlet for us, and our Hamlets have to jest like Prince Hal. The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

Ah, but so often in life it is we, ourselves, who cast us in the wrong part.
( )