Perhaps that is why many of his stories and essays and plays are used as
English text-books in Russian and Scandinavian and Hungarian schools.
Artifice and affectation, often assumed to be recurrent defects in his
writings by those unacquainted with them, are comparatively rare. Wilde
once boasted in an interview that only Flaubert, Pater, Keats, and
Maeterlinck had influenced him, and then added in a characteristic way:
"But I had already gone more than half-way to meet them." Anyone curious
as to the origin of Wilde's style and development should consult the
learned treatise {1} of Dr. Ernst Bendz, whose comprehensive treatment of
the subject renders any elucidation of mine superfluous; while nothing
can be added to Mr. Holbrook Jackson's masterly criticism {2} of Wilde
and his position in literature.
In making this selection, with the valuable assistance of Mr. Stuart
Mason, I have endeavoured to illustrate and to justify the critical
appreciations of both Dr. Bendz and Mr. Holbrook Jackson, as well as to
afford the general reader a fair idea of Wilde's variety as a prose
writer.
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