THE DECAY OF LYING - An Observation by Wilde, Oscar - 1911

New York: Dodd, Mead. Very Good-. 1911. Stiff Card Wrappers. 81 pages; Separate printing, originally included in his collection of essays INTENTIONS. Contents complete in original stiff boards in blue printed French dustwrapper worn along spine. Offsetting to title page from newsclipping and owner's bookplate mounted to opposite page; rear wrapperadhered to last blank page. A charming press edition. OCLC 6179380 Wilde presents the essay in a Socratic dialogue between Vivian and Cyril, two characters named after his own sons. Their conversation, though playful and whimsical, promotes Wilde's view of Romanticism over Realism. According to Vivian, the decay of Lying "as an art, a science, and a social pleasure" is responsible for the decline of modern literature, which is excessively concerned with the representation of facts and social reality. He writes, "if something cannot be done to check, or at least to modify, our monstrous worship of facts, Art will become sterile and beauty will pass away from the land." Moreover, Vivian defends the idea that Life imitates Art far more than vice versa. Nature, he argues, is no less an imitation of Art than Life. Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art. As Michèle Mendelssohn points out, "Wilde's essay touched on a profound truth about human behaviour in social situations. The laws of etiquette governing polite society were, in fact, a mask. Tact was merely an elaborate art of impression management." .