Product Description

Among the most successful of the varied work of the great English poet and dramatist, this ghost story by Oscar Wilde must be considered one of the most popular, but now relatively unknown. It is an amusing chronicles of the Ghost of Canterville Chase when his ancestral halls became the home of the American Minister to the Court of St.James.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #909176 in Books
• Published on: 1970-06
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .20" h x 4.23" w x 6.50" l, .12 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 64 pages

From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up Lovers of Oscar Wilde's stories will delight in this new illustrated version of The Canterville Ghost if the picture book format does not keep them from finding it. Wilde's story of an American family who moves into Canterville Chase and annoys a weary ghost with their lack of belief in him is a wry commentary on the ways of British nobility and of their hard-headed American cousins. Like many of Wilde's tales, this one is filled with sophisticated allusions to his social and political milieu, but ends as sentimental romance. Zwerger's wry pictures highlight this tone beautifully. Her toothless ghost is round and comical, as would suit a ghost whom no one fears, and her heroine, Virginia, is young and sweetly boyish. All of the illustrations are set against misty gray watercolor backgrounds except for the climactic scene, echoed on the front cover, in which the tiny huntsmen on the wallpaper call out to Virginia to ``Go Back.'' This will make a fine read-aloud for audiences of secondary students who are prepared to savor Wilde's ironic humor and Zwerger's delicate watercolors. Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 7^-12. Although first published in 1891, this ghost story remains a classic of Wildean wit and Victorian sentimentality. True, some of the references to melodrama and nineteenth-century Anglo-American attitudes may elude modern readers, but the basic story of a hardheaded American family that buys a haunted British manor house and proceeds to drive the resident ghost nearly crazy with its skepticism is still a delight, as are Wilde's epigrams: "We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language." Austrian illustrator Zwerger, a master of the exquisite line, has captured the look of the period and the liveliness of the story in this oversize volume. Michael Cart

Ingram
An American family moves into Canterville Chase, rumored to be a haunted house. But the skeptical Americans do not believe in ghosts--not, that is, until their daughter Virginia disappears after a series of uncanny incidents. Full color.