Lord Arthur Savile's Crime is a short story by Oscar Wilde. It may also be called a novella, as it has chapters of its own and is larger than your average short story.
Wilde famously wrote only one novel, The Picture of Dorian Grey. The novella I am (re)reading now, Lord Arthur Savile's Crime is, intriguingly, a re-telling of The Picture of Dorian Grey. You can tell the moment you start reading: Arthur Savile is exactly like Dorian Grey, and his fiancee Sybil Merton is Dorian's fiancee, Sybil Vane. In both works, there is an evil prediction or fate hanging over the young male protagonist.
Unlike Dorian Grey, Crime has a happy ending! :-) This is great for me, coz I only like happy endings.
To get back to Wilde's writing. I honestly think he is an absolute master of language. I don't think I have read more wonderful and sensitive descriptions of beauty than in Wilde. The "dawn's delicate loveliness", the "days that break in beauty", the water "glimmering like a moonstone" and, an amazing description, the vegetables in the London morning market looking "like masses of jade against the morning sky, like masses of green jade against the pink petals of some marvellous rose".
I also enjoyed Sybil Merton's description, especially the "there was a touch of Greek grace in her pose and attitude"!
What I love about Wilde also, is that he understood one thing: if the public enjoys beautiful female heroines, they are going to enjoy beautiful male protagonists too. You can trust Wilde on that, and you know how I insist that giving beauty only to the female protagonist is sexist (the woman needs to be beautiful in fiction, but the man doesn't).
Have a great Sunday wherever you are! xxx
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