Stephen Fry Presents a Selection of Oscar Wilde’s Short Stories

Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales continue to exert the same pull over the imagination and emotions as they did when he first read them to his children in the 1880s. Written with inspired poetic intensity and sudden flowerings of the matchless wit for which he is so well remembered, the stories combine the wisdom of parables with the impact of drama. I have loved them since I was a child: indeed they continue to make a child of me. I do not mind admitting that at the recording some passages were hard to read out loud without choking. I hope you will be as entranced by them as I have always been.

Stories read are:
THE YOUNG KING (Duration 33:59)
THE SELFISH GIANT (Duration 10:56)
THE REMARKABLE ROCKET (Duration 27:49)
THE NIGHTINGALE AND THE ROSE (Duration 15:30)
THE HAPPY PRINCE (Duration 20:56)
THE DEVOTED FRIEND (Duration 24:34)

This blog was posted in Audio and Media

Stephen Fry Presents a Selection of Anton Chekhov’s Short Stories

Immerse yourself in a world where the wonderful Stephen Fry reads some of the more memorable short stories of our time. Stephen’s voice takes you into a different kind of listening experience, enabling you to imagine narrative, settings, places and people with vivid colour and meaning. Enjoy the work of one of the most celebrated writers in world literature – Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekov. A brilliant combination of reader and writer come together in these seven short stories available on digital download only.

Stories read are:
THE LADY WITH THE DOG (Duration 40:37)
THE HUNTSMAN (Duration 10:49)
OYSTERS (Duration 9:56)
MISERY (Duration 13:30)
BOYS (Duration 15:37)
AN AVENGER (Duration 12:27)
A BLUNDER (Duration 4:57)

This blog was posted in Audio and Media

Beauty of Soul: Oscar Wilde & Anton Chekhov

Everything we know about people is wrong.

Well, perhaps that’s going a little far. But, really. Take Oscar. Oscar Wilde. He stands for one thing and one thing only. Wit. Sharp wit. Glittering wit. Keen, wicked, penetrating wit. Camp. Clever. Crushing. Proud, peacocky and impertinent.

Recording Oscar Wilde and Anton Chekhov. © Samfry Ltd 2008

Recording Oscar Wilde and Anton Chekhov. © Samfry Ltd 2008

Wrong. Wrong, wronger, wrongest.

Certainly Wilde was witty, certainly he is remembered for firing off epigrams like a belt-fed mortar. But look properly at the man and his works and you will see that the spirits that most animated him were in fact those of sympathy and imagination., which are really one spirit. Wilde was an artist; he was of course prince among artists in his time. He championed art above everything. But that is because he understood that art is the product, not of intellect, wit or superior faculties of understanding, but of imagination. As it happens he had intellect, wit and superior faculties of understanding and he had them in spades. Such qualities can make a critic, a businessman, a lawyer, a politician, a scholar or a general. They can fit a person to be almost anything; anything, that is, but an artist. To be sure they are fine qualities for an artist to have, but they are not necessary or sufficient for the making of an artist. For that what is needed is imagination.

We know that imagination is about making things up. About pretending. About creating worlds, pictures, situations and characters all out of our head.

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This blog was posted in Blessays

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