Although Wilde liked to pose as a dandy who seldom worked, he was a very productive journalist, critic, editor, dramatist, poet, and fiction writer. Writing nine plays between 1879 and 1894, his reputation as a dramatist really was earned by Salome and by four comedies: Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde gloried in the decadence of Salome, a one-act play about the biblical character who danced for King Herod in order to obtain the decapitated head of John the Baptist. The exotic and violent production was welcomed in France before it could be performed in Victorian England. The censorship that Salome received in England anticipated Wilde's personal problems in the courts. The Importance of Being Earnest, a combination of wit and farce, is Wilde's most enduring play and arguably his best.
A reader new to Wilde might be surprised to learn that most of the author's fiction consists of two volumes of fairy tales. Originally told to adults at social occasions, the stories are not necessarily meant for children. Asked about the intended audience for his fairy tales, Wilde responded, "I had about as much intention of pleasing the British child as I did of pleasing the British public." Although he sounds indifferent, Wilde probably hoped to please both audiences. Certainly he welcomed an enthusiastic response from his mentor (from Oxford days) Walter Pater, an important proponent of Aestheticism, who especially appreciated "The Happy Prince" and "The Selfish Giant."
Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, first appeared as a novella in the June 20, 1890, issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. Dorian Gray caused quite a stir; critics and readers alike called it an immoral story. Wilde published an expanded and revised version of the story in book form the next year. He included a preface that contained, among other aphorisms (brief statements espousing truths or opinions), a biting response to his critics: There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book; a book is just written well or written poorly.
