"Do you want to know the great tragedy of my life? I have put all of my genius into my life; all I've put into my work is my talent." "We live in an age that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." Oscar Wilde is considered to be the greatest wit in the English language; this book marks the centenary of his death in penury and exile in Paris. Barry Day charts - in Wilde's own inimitable style - his progress from the brilliant, youthful aesthete who mesmerized his audiences, to the drunken debaucher, destroyed by his own vanity and arrogance. The book combines not only Wilde's famous epigrams ("Work is the curse of the drinking classes"), but also the words torn from his heart, from his letters and diaries. It is a tribute to a man who is today perhaps even more famous and admired than he was in his own lifetime.