The Canterville Ghost

When the American diplomat Hiram B. Otis buys Canterville Chase, an old English country house, he is warned that it is haunted by Sir Simon de Canterville, who murdered his wife in 1575. The Otis family is not impressed: they offer the ghost lubricating oil for his rattling chains, scrub away his famous bloodstain with a modern stain remover, and the mischievous twins play tricks on him until the poor ghost is miserable. Only the gentle daughter, Virginia, takes pity on him.

Oscar Wilde published this comic story in 1887. It gently mocks both English snobbery and American practicality, has an unexpectedly tender ending, and has been filmed many times. Read Wilde's fairy tales in The Happy Prince and Other Tales, and see his life.

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was born in Dublin, studied classics at Trinity College and Oxford, and became the most quotable man in London, the leading voice of the movement that preached art for art's sake. Between 1892 and 1895 his comedies filled the theatres, and his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, caused a sensation.

At the height of his fame he was convicted for his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas and sentenced to two years of hard labour, an experience he wrote about in De Profundis. He died in exile in Paris, poor and broken, at forty-six. The Importance of Being Earnest remains one of the funniest plays in English.