Lord Arthur Savile's Crime: Short Story

By Oscar Wilde

When a palm-reader reveals that Lord Arthur Savile’s destiny is to be a murderer, Lord Arthur sets out to commit the crime so that he might marry without impediment. But was murder truly Lord Arthur’s destiny or did it only seem to be so because of the palm-reader’s suggestion?

Victorian author Oscar Wilde is known both as a playwright and prose author. Among his most famous works are The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel, the plays An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, and the short story collections Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories and The Happy Prince and Other Stories.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Nov 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781443442589

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was a Dublin-born poet and playwright who studied at the Portora Royal School, before attending Trinity College and Magdalen College, Oxford. The son of two writers, Wilde grew up in an intellectual environment. As a young man, his poetry appeared in various periodicals including Dublin University Magazine. In 1881, he published his first book Poems, an expansive collection of his earlier works. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was released in 1890 followed by the acclaimed plays Lady Windermere’s Fan (1893) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).

Book preview

LORD ARTHUR SAVILE’S CRIME

A Study of Duty

1

It was Lady Windermere’s last reception before Easter, and Bentinck House was even more crowded than usual. Six Cabinet Ministers had come on from the Speaker’s Levee in their stars and ribands, all the pretty women wore their smartest dresses, and at the end of the picture-gallery stood the Princess Sophia of Carlsrühe, a heavy Tartar-looking lady, with tiny black eyes and wonderful emeralds, talking bad French at the top of her voice, and laughing immoderately at everything that was said to her. It was certainly a wonderful medley of people. Gorgeous peeresses chatted affably to violent Radicals, popular preachers brushed coat-tails with eminent sceptics, a perfect bevy of bishops kept following a stout prima-donna from room to room, on the staircase stood several Royal Academicians, disguised as artists, and it was said that at one time the supper-room was absolutely crammed with geniuses. In fact, it was one of Lady Windermere’s best nights, and the Princess stayed till nearly half-past eleven.

As soon as she had gone, Lady Windermere returned to the picture-gallery, where a celebrated political economist was solemnly explaining the scientific theory of music to an indignant virtuoso from Hungary, and began to talk to the Duchess of Paisley. She looked wonderfully beautiful with her grand ivory throat, her large blue forget-me-not eyes, and her heavy coils of golden hair. Or pur they were – not that pale straw colour that nowadays usurps the gracious name of gold, but such gold as is woven into sunbeams or hidden in strange amber; and they gave to her face something of the frame of a saint, with not a little of the fascination of a sinner. She was a curious psychological study. Early in life she had discovered the important truth that nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion; and by a series of reckless escapades, half of them quite harmless, she had acquired all the privileges of a personality. She had more than once changed her husband; indeed, Debrett credits her with three marriages; but as she had never changed her lover, the world had long ago ceased to talk scandal about her. She was now forty years of age, childless, and with that inordinate passion for pleasure which is the secret of remaining young.

Suddenly she looked eagerly round the room, and said, in her clear contralto voice, ‘Where is my chiromantist?’

‘Your what, Gladys?’ exclaimed the Duchess, giving an involuntary start.

‘My chiromantist, Duchess; I can’t live without him at present.’

‘Dear Gladys! you are always so original,’ murmured the Duchess, trying to remember what a chiromantist really was, and hoping it was not the same as a chiropodist.

‘He comes to see my hand twice a week regularly,’ continued Lady Windermere, ‘and is most interesting about it.’

‘Good heavens!’ said the Duchess to herself, ‘he is a sort of chiropodist after all. How very dreadful. I hope he is a foreigner at any rate. It wouldn’t be quite so bad then.’

‘I must certainly introduce him to you.’

‘Introduce him!’ cried the Duchess; ‘you don’t mean to say he is here?’ and she began looking about for a small tortoise-shell fan and a very tattered lace shawl, so as to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.

‘Of course he is here; I would not dream of giving a party without him. He tells me I have a pure psychic hand, and that if my thumb had been the least little bit shorter, I should have been a confirmed pessimist, and gone into a convent.’

‘Oh, I see!’ said the Duchess, feeling very much relieved; ‘he tells fortunes, I suppose?’

‘And misfortunes, too,’ answered Lady Windermere, ‘any amount of them. Next year, for instance, I am in great danger, both by land and sea, so

Reviews for Lord Arthur Savile's Crime

[tronella_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very amusing.

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Early in life she had discovered the important truth that nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion; and by a series of reckless escapades, half of them quite harmless, she had acquired all the privileges of a personality. She had more than once changed her husband; indeed, Debrett credits her with three marriages; but as she had never changed her lover, the world had long ago ceased to talk scandal about her.This book contains five short stories from the late 1880s. I read it a long time ago,and recently downloaded it from Project Gutenberg to re-read.My favourite is Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, whose protagonist is unbelievably gullible when he has his fortune read at a society party. The Canterville Ghost is the story of a mediaeval English ghost's encounter with a modern American family who torment him and do not respect him at all. It's fun, but seems more like a children's story than the other stories in the book.The Sphinx Without a Secret was my least favourite, being both dull and and forgettable.The Model Millionaire was enjoyable, but is another story that I had completely forgotten from the previous time I read it.In The Portrait of Mr. W. H., the characters discuss the evidence for Shakespeare's sonnets being dedicated to a young actor called Willie Hughes, and keep changing their minds about whether the theory is true or not. I found it amusing how their minds were swayed, as if it were impossible for more than one of them to believe in the Willie Hughes theory at any one time.

[durgaprsd04-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I do not think one can read palms all that easy and say what is future.

[tmiddleton-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It seems to me that some here are not taking into account the potential for wider echoes, for deeper metaphors, contained within some of these stories, beyond the cute and clever word-play and emotional moral parables. There is, it seems to me for example, a rather blatant hint towards the end of “The Portrait of Mr W.H.” that, as wonderful as the plot's fabrication is, it is itself a particular shadow on a certain cave wall...

But perhaps its just my cataracts...

[meandmybooks-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Delicious fun! This is along the lines of “The Importance of Being Earnest” or “An Ideal Husband,” only in short story format rather than a play. Ridiculous, witty, and charming, this story adds a dire prediction and murder to the mix in the courtship of our frivolous and affectionate young couple. Oddly, it kept reminding me of that old Alec Guinness movie, “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” although that story ends rather differently. This is Number 59 in Penguin's Little Black Classics series, and is certainly one of my favorites in that collection!

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found this collection a mixed bag. Probably the best story is the only one I have read before: The Canterville Ghost (and my Project Gutenberg edition has illustrations!). I liked the title story, The Sphinx Without a Secret and A Model Millionaire all right but found the last story, The Portrait of Mr. W.H. dull and too long.I started listening to the Librivox recording (and did listen to it for The Sphinx Without a Secret) but discovered I had access to a recording narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi via Hoopla. I love Jacobi & he is a marvelous narrator but the Blackstone Audio edition has different contents! It had all of the stories in this Kindle edition except The Sphinx Without a Secret but also 5 additional stories.