Read Your Own Bedtime Story: Oscar Wilde

English was secretly my favourite subject at school. I say secretly because as a teen it’s only considered proper to laugh at those stuffy poets in tights and ruffs or Brylcreem and cravats, puffing on long pipes in leather chairs. The fact is I, (and maybe secretly everyone) found them brilliantly riveting. I still do, but now I think I can safely admit to it. Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde are my favourite comedians.

I knew Oscar Wilde from a younger age, through his fairytales, opulently illustrated by Charles Robinson. Snuggoled under an eiderdown with my mother and brother with mugs of hot cocoa I would travel through other times and climes on the wings of his words. He was a welcome relief from the dark grimness of the Brothers Grimm, or the fascinating strangeness of Dr Seuss, and AA Milne must sometimes have been ragged and tired from over-use.

I knew and loved Oscar Wilde’s words later at school through his plays, but I love them all the more now, the more I know them. Lady Windermere’s Fan, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest are some of the wittiest stories I know, and with brilliant twists of plot. But the frivolous exterior (great fun in itself), thinly veils a profound sensitivity, and depth of perception. Although Wilde was Irish I must include him among the English, who have no greater joy than in laughing at themselves. (And as rightly pointed out to me on the Sri Chinmoy Inspiration Group recently, we do have so very much to laugh about).

Revisiting in relative adulthood the stories I loved as a child I am enchanted and deeply moved by the beauty of the writing. What’s more, and perhaps most surprising of all, their perfection is often completed with profound spiritual morals, especially in the case of his most famous: The Happy Prince. If you have not done so, or if you have not done so in a while, read yourself this bedtime story: The Happy Prince.

Another favourite is The Nightingale and the Rose. Its painful cynicism would be funny if it weren’t so exquisitely crafted in prose. I tried to read them each aloud recently but tears stopped my voice on both occasions, so moved was I by their unutterable beauty. I hope you enjoy them even half as much as I do.