OSCAR WILDE by Richard Ellmann (Alfred A....

OSCAR WILDE

by Richard Ellmann (Alfred A. Knopf: $24.95; 630 pp.) Ellmann’s biography is authoritative and daring, and incontestably the best work we have seen on the subject. His Wilde is the tragic artist beneath the frivolous one.--Richard Eder

FAMILY ATTRACTIONS by Judith Freeman (Viking: $16.95; 210 pp.) Judith Freeman’s passionate voices, deeply felt experience, folk wisdom, and ingenuousness of tone move the reader directly into the author’s fictional world.--Merrill Joan Gerber