A POET CAN SURVIVE EVERYTHING BUT A MISPRINT

All art, Oscar Wilde once announced, is quite useless. Selected here are some of his finest prose works on the subject of art _ useless, illuminating, artificial, uplifting, radical, gorgeous, boring, sublime _ and his most brilliant aphorisms on the creative life. Whether lamenting the crass urge to hold art to realist or natural standards or arguing against morality as a guiding principle, Wilde defends the artist while delighting the audience.