Since this is well under 200 pages long, it seems likely that it could only be a job of encapsulation, and so indeed it proves. A handful of Wilde's short poems are given, a brief excerpt - a monologue, in effect - from the early play The Duchess of Pa duo, some stories and miscellaneous pieces. An Ideal Husband and A Woman of No Importance are so truncated that it might have been better to omit them alto g ether; only The Importance of Being Earnest is given entire. De Profundis (admittedly, a work of dubious value) is also compressed, and the book concludes with The Ballad of Reading Gaol. There are better, meatier, and more authoritative Wit de anthologies available than this one.