One of the most famous Wilde's story The Canterville Ghost is a humorous short story by Oscar Wilde. It was the first of Wilde's stories to be published. The text of this edition of The Canterville Ghost is based on the edition published in 1906 by John W. Luce and Company. Illustrations by Wallace Goldsmith (1873- 1945). Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for gross indecency for consensual homosexual acts, imprisonment, and early death from meningitis at age 46.