Oscar Wilde, 159 today, is having a bit of a moment in the sun.

A film reimagining his fable The Selfish Giant is about to hit the cinemas, and he has been crowned the most-quoted humorist in the new Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations.

Among his 92 entries is editor Gyles Brandreth's fifth favourite joke of all time: "To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness," from his 1895 play The Importance of Being Earnest.

Vintage handbag Photograph: Steve Wisbauer/Getty Images

Some of his jokes need to be spoken out loud for their full aphoristic glory to be appreciated - has anyone ever wrung more humour from two words than Wilde did from Lady Bracknell's appalled "A handbag", also from The Importance of Being Earnest?

Or how about this, from the odious Cecil Graham in Lady Windermere's Fan: "Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality."

Or this, from Lord Illingworth in A Woman of No Importance: "The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years."

We could go on, but we thought we'd leave it to you. Which do you think are Wilde's funniest lines? (And watch out for all the misattributed ones.)