The works of the man known for his wit, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, and more.
Also free on the Amazon au site: https://www.amazon.com.au/Complete-Works-Oscar-Wilde-Shandon…
As always, while free at time of posting, please check before proceeding.
works just fine with my US amazon acc.
Copyright on all of Oscar Wilde's works have lapsed as he has been dead for over 100 years (criteria is over 70 years in the UK and Australia)
It is a travesty that Amazon and the publishers would even charge for it in the first place.
How is this a deal?
How is this a deal?
bit harsh to neg it, IMO
a. its free and easily acquired thanks to Amazon
b. given how busy people are, plenty probably wouldn't have bothered to look for it nor do they have the time
and c. the subject matter and the person is interesting
ps did not neg your comment
Posting this as a deal reinforces the notion that people are expected to pay for access to these classical works. This is simply not true.
You can read the complete works of Oscar Wilde and 53,000 other books by deceased authors for free at the Gutenberg Project.
Available for reading online or downloading in a number of eBook formats.
Not nearly difficult.
Still harsh to neg a free deal though.
Offering it for free only temporarily points towards predatory practices by Amazon and the publisher to offer free works for a profit.
This literature is available for free at all times of the year through numerous online sources.
It depends on the cost and what value is added.
"This ebook contains all of Oscar Wilde's plays (including the fragments), his only novel, his fairy tales and short stories, the poems, all of his essays, lectures, reviews, and other newspaper articles, based on the 1909 edition of his works."
"For easier navigation, there are tables of contents for each section and one for the whole volume. At the end of each text there are links bringing you back to the respective contents tables. I have also added an alphabetical index for the poems and a combined one for all the essays, lectures, articles, and reviews."
The author has put some value add in here, so, a small fee may be perfectly reasonable.
I can see you feel very strongly about this, I suppose on an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure. ;)
Anyway, as is apparent from the Sherlock Holmes freebie post, some find value in clicking once to download a number of works by a particular author - say Arthur Conan Doyle - even if you can find and download each of his works separately on project Gutenberg and other places. I personally find it easier to download a collection of works whenever i stumble upon one for free whether from Amazon or via another site.
Good on you for alerting people about project Gutenberg though - it's a great site.
@28Degrees:
It is not Free, it is DRM infested, which takes away your freedom to format-shift, share, etc.
Gutenburg has actually free versions.
@tony abbott: i am not negging the deal as I do think it's useful for many who otherwise wouldn't know, however I agree that Amazon should be taking it upon itself not to charge for these titles. If there is some value add here fair enough, but Amazon is well off enough from other sources of revenue that lapsed books should always have free versions IMO
@28Degrees:
I don't think that it is too harsh. If someone publishes deal for a price which is deemed "common" the deal gets negs too.
Let's say musical work of deceased authors still require some artistic input - i.e. not everyone can play Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, it does require significant talent and work and the result can still vary slightly from one interpretation to another.
With the book though (unless it is a new translation which arguably does involve some artistic thinking) there is not much added. Adding a table of content, etc is (to me) like adding a nice packaging. Yes, there are situations where I can opt for a nicer packaging, but the core product is the same - the one which can be had for free.
I did not neg the deal as someone may see some kind of value in that "packaging" however agree with tony abbot in principle.
Hear, hear! Everyone knows these classics are royalty free. Some people are happy to pay for a compiled, well formatted and indexed version. Ozbargainers however will wait for freebies like this to replace their Gutenberg versions which are not necessarily the best formatted.
Water is available free at parks, or nearly free at your home, yet supermarkets charge, and people pay for bottled water, for the convenience. It's supply and demand, not "predatory", as you put it. The deal is not for you, but to pay $1.99 and have the ability to download the entire works as one bundle is a deal for some.
Water is available free at parks,
Metaphors between tangible and intangible goods fail badly.
But I'll try: this is more like a guy setting up a stall at the fountain in the park with a sign saying "Water bottle fills $5".
People might think they can't just use the fountain themselves, for free.
I downloaded and read The Picture Of Dorian Gray for free from Google Play a couple of years ago. There are plenty of out of copyright works on there for free.
There a proliferation of these "complete works of books out of copyright" of late, which are pretty much some e-publisher getting all the books from somewhere and putting them together in a e-book and throwing them up on Amazon. If you search amazon for ShandonPress, you'll find you can also have the complete works of Plato, Sigmund Freud, Shakespeare, George Elliot… and on and on, for free, or a few dollars.
If you want the complete works of someone, then it saves you tracking down all the books yourself… not sure if it's worthy of a bargain though.
Amazon is doing a spectacular job of predicting the classic books I've been meaning to read but never seem to get around to.
Available for a better price elsewhere all the time.. No deal..
Looks like its expired.
Yep.
Thanks, have marked as expired
Needed to use a vpn pointed at the usa to buy it.