by Oscar Wilde
The Ballad of Reading Gaol (London: Leonard Smithers & Co, 1898)
First published pseudonymously under Wilde’s prison cell number ‘C.3.3.’. Only with the seventh edition did Wilde’s name appear on the title page. The first edition was 800 copies.
De Profundis (London: Methuen & Co, 1905)
Heavily expurgated by Wilde’s literary executor in the first edition of 10,000 copies, this letter to Alfred Douglas was first published in its entirety only in 1962. The story is treated more fully in the introduction to the ‘Essays’ section of the present edition.
The Duchess of Padua (New York?/London?, 1891?)
Mystery surrounds the first printed edition. Wilde wrote the play for the American actress Mary Anderson when he was in Paris early in 1883. He sent it to her, but she turned it down. It was first played in New York in 1891. At some stage twenty acting copies were printed of which only a handful still exist. They bear the date 15 March 1883, the date he finished writing it, but given the state of Wilde’s finances in 1883, it is much more likely to have been printed in time for the rehearsals in 1891.
The Happy Prince and Other Tales. Illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood (London: David Nutt, 1888)
Containing ‘The Happy Prince’, ‘The Selfish Giant’, ‘The Remarkable Rocket’, ‘The Devoted Friend’ and ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’, all of which were published for the first time. 1000 copies were printed.
A House of Pomegranates. Illustrated by Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon (London: Osgood, McIlvaine & Co, 1891)
Two of the stories ‘The Young King’ and ‘The Birthday of the Infanta had previously been published in periodicals (see chronology); ‘The Fisherman and His Soul’ and ‘The Star-Child’ were first published in this volume. The edition was 1000 copies.
An Ideal Husband (London: Leonard Smithers & Co, 1899)
The first edition consisted of 1000 copies. Like The Importance of Being Earnest, issued earlier the same year, ‘By the author of Lady Windermere’s Fan’, appeared instead of Wilde’s name on the title page.
The Importance of Being Earnest (London: Leonard Smithers & Co, 1899)
1000 copies were printed of the first edition. Originally written in four acts, Wilde pruned it down to three at the request of the actor-manager George Alexander who first produced it. Another copy of the four-act version had been sent to an impressario in America late in 1894 but was never staged because of Wilde’s disgrace. It was discovered years later in New York and first published in 1956.
Intentions (London: Osgood, McIlvaine & Co, 1891)
Containing ‘The Truth of Masks’, ‘The Critic as Artist’, ‘The Decay of Lying’ and ‘Pen, Pencil and Poison’, all of which essays had previously been published in periodicals (see chronology) and all show considerable variations from the text as first published. The edition consisted of 1500 copies.
Lady Windermere’s Fan (London: Elkin Matthews & John Lane, 1893) An edition of 500 copies.
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories (London: Osgood, McIlvaine & Co, 1891)
All these stories ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’, ‘The Model Millionaire’, ‘The Sphinx without a Secret’ and ‘The Canterville Ghost’ had previously been published in periodicals (see chronology). 2000 copies were printed.
Oscariana (London: Privately Printed by Arthur Humphries, 1895)
A selection of epigrams and aphorisms from Wrilde’s writings made by his wife, Constance. Only 50 copies were printed of this first edition.
The Picture of Dorian Gray (London: Ward, Lock & Co, 1891)
This, Wilde’s only novel, was first published in 1890 in Lippincott’s Magazine with thirteen chapters. Published a year later in book form it contained six new chapters, many alterations and much additional matter. No record of the number of copies printed. An annotated textual comparison of the two versions was edited by Donald Lawler in 1988 (London; New York: W. W. Norton).
Poems (London: David Bogue, 1881)
750 copies were printed at Wilde’s expense and spread over three ‘editions’, each with a new title page. Another 500 were printed with minor changes as the fourth and fifth editions the following year.
The Portrait of Mr W.H. (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1921)
This story was first published in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1889. Wilde projected a more elaborate version to be published in book form with publishers Elkin Matthews & John Lane who announced it ‘in preparation’ at the end of 1893. The manuscript was apparently returned to Wilde on the day of his arrest and then disappeared until it turned up in New York and was first published in 1921 in 1000 copies. An English edition was first published by Methuen in 1958.
Ravenna (Oxford: Thos. Shrimpton & Sons, 1878)
The long poem with which Wilde won the Newdigate Prize in 1878 was published within two weeks of the award by the Oxford booksellers Shrimpton, who traditionally published all the prize poems. Only about 170 copies were ever printed.
Salomé (French edition: Paris: Librarie de L’Art Indépendant; London: Elkin Matthews & John Lane, 1893. English edition: London: Elkin Matthews & John Lane, 1894)
Originally written in French by Wilde and ‘polished’ by Pierre Louÿs. The French edition appeared in 600 copies. It was then translated (badly) by Alfred Douglas, corrected (mostly by Wilde) and issued in 500 copies in English with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. Beardsley provided seventeen designs of which three were supressed, two bowdlerised and one omitted from this edition. All but one were finally printed as drawn in the Bodley Head edition of 1906.
The Soul of Man (London: Privately Printed, 1895)
This essay was originally published in The Fortnightly Review in 1891 as ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’. This first edition in book form of only 50 copies was in fact published by Arthur Humphries within days of Wilde’s final conviction and imprisonment. Humphries, a friend of the Wildes and manager of Hatchards bookshop, undertook publication as a gesture of solidarity at the time of Wilde’s disgrace.
The Sphinx. Illustrated by Charles Ricketts (London: Elkin Matthews & John Lane, 1894)
Issued in 200 copies only.
Vera; or the Nihilists (London: Ranken & Co, 1880)
Almost certainly published at Wilde’s expense as a very small acting edition, only a few copies are known to exist. The first performance, planned for December 1881 was cancelled for diplomatic reasons due to the assassination of Czar Alexander. Another small edition was printed and published by Wilde in 1882 when he was trying to have it staged during his American tour. It was eventually put on the following year in New York.
A Woman of No Importance (London: John Lane, 1894)
First edition in 500 copies.
The first Collected Works in 14 vols edited by Robert Ross, was published by Methuen & Co in 1908. It contained all the above works as well as the first non-periodical and authorised versions of: ‘Poems in Prose’, ‘Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young’, previously published poems not in the editions of 1881/2, and, as far as was then known, all Wilde’s reviews and published essays.
The Collected Works also contained a number of previously unpublished pieces: ‘La Sainte Courtisane’, ‘A Florentine Tragedy’, the full text of ‘The Rise of Historical Criticism’, the poem ‘To L. L.’ and the four lectures ‘The English Renaissance’, ‘House Decoration’, ‘Art and the Handicraftsman’ and the ‘Lecture to Art Students’.
Wilde’s lecture ‘Impressions of America’ was first published by the Keystone Press in 1906.
Two previously unpublished poems ‘Pan’ and ‘Désespoir’ were first published in Methuen’s second collected edition of 1909.
‘A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated’ which had been published anonymously in The Saturday Review in 1894 were only recognised in the 1950s and first published as Appendix B of the Letters in 1962.
Various small collections of Wilde’s letters were published (largely by the
recipients) after his death. Most were in limited bibliophile editions. One of the most impressive is Some Letters from Lord Alfred Douglas to Oscar Wilde (San Francisco, 1924) in which the letters are reproduced in facsimile. All, however, were superseded by the authoritative Letters of Oscar Wilde ed. Rupert Hart-Davis (London, 1962) and its supplement More Letters of Oscar Wilde (London, 1985).
The latest collection of Wilde’s letters The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde (London, 2000) contains all the letters published between 1962 and 1985 as well as an additional 300 and the full and accurate texts to many only previously known through auction catalogues or inaccurate typescripts. Oscar Wilde: A Life in Letters (London, 2003) is a good general reader’s abridgement of the Complete Letters.
The best generally available edition of Wilde’s collected works is that published by HarperCollins, whose Centenary Edition (Glasgow, 2000) has the added advantage of being illustrated.
Oxford University Press’s World’s Classics Series and the Penguin Classics Series both provide the best annotated texts for the general reader grouped under ‘Theatre’, ‘Shorter Fiction’, ‘Prison Writings’ etc. and are generally maintained in print.
Oxford University Press also has an ongoing commitment to publish all Wilde’s works in its Oxford English Texts Series with a full scholarly apparatus for each volume. So far three volumes have appeared: Poems, ed. Karl Beckson and Bobby Fong (2000); De Profundis, ed. Ian Small (2005); The Picture of Dorian Gray ed. Joseph Bristow (2005).
Bibliographies of Oscar Wilde
Kohl, Norbert. Oscar Wilde (Heidelberg, 1980; Trs. Cambridge, 1989)
The German edition of this study contains a massive 165pp bibliography much reduced in the English translation (see below) which is an excellent supplement to Mikhail.
Mason, Stuart. Bibliography of Oscar Wilde (London, [1914])
A remarkable work full of biographical and other snippets. Occasional errors but still indispensable for early publications of Wilde’s works. Contains valuable information on periodical publications, piracies etc.
Mikhail, E.H. Oscar Wilde: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism (London, 1978)
Contains some 3500 references divided mainly into books, articles, dissertations, contemporary reviews of Wilde’s works, and reviews of stage productions.
Mikolyzk, Thomas A. Oscar Wilde: An Annotated Bibliography (Westport, Conn., 1993)
More comprehensive than Mikhail but packed with errors, even repeating some of Mikhail’s.
The Secondary Literature: Biographies, Critical Studies etc.
The following is necessarily only a small selection of the literature published on Wilde in the last 100 years. Mikhail (above) lists 375 books alone dealing entirely with Wilde. In addition to serious biographical and textual studies there have been many attempts to dramatise Wilde’s life, fact/fiction novels written about him and even psychic mediums who have recorded messages from him. A small number are included here for interest. Many of the earlier works below have been reprinted but are out of print again and the reprint is as scarce as the original. Only the first date of publication is therefore given unless a later edition was revised or enlarged. Translations of foreign works into English are noted thus (Trs. London, 1967).
Amor, Anne Clark. Mrs Oscar Wilde: A Woman of Some Importance (London, 1983)
By far the more scholarly of two books on Constance appearing in 1983. Well researched and referenced.
Ackroyd, Peter. The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (London, 1983)
A fictional account of Wilde’s last days in Paris in diary form.
Beckson, Karl, (ed.). Oscar Wilde: The Critical Heritage (London, 1970)
Collection of contemporary and later criticism of Wilde’s work.
Beckson, Karl. The Oscar Wilde Encyclopaedia (New York, 1998)
An indispensible tool for the serious Wildean, especially on the individual works.
Birnbaum, Martin. Oscar Wilde: Fragments and Memories (London, 1914)
Slim volume with reliable anecdotes.
Bloom, Harold, (ed.). Oscar Wilde (New York, 1985)
Mostly modern critical essays with memoir by W.B. Yeats.
Braybrooke, Patrick. Oscar Wilde: A Study (London, 1930)
Literary criticism.
Brasol, Boris. Oscar Wilde: The Man, the Artist, the Martyr (New York, 1938)
Best of the pre-war biographies, also attempting critique of works.
Brémont, Anna Comtesse de. Oscar Wilde and his Mother (London, 1911)
Attributes Wilde’s ‘feminine soul’ to his dominant mother.
Broad, Lewis. The Friendships and Follies of Oscar Wilde (London, 1954)
Byrne, Patrick. The Wildes of Merrion Square (London; New York, 1953)
Noteless, chapter-headless, passable early study of the family.
Callow, Simon. Oscar Wilde and his Circle (London, 2000)
Wilde from point of view of friends, lovers and family, and the whole from point of view of a leading British actor who has frequently interpreted Wilde on stage. Well illustrated.
Chamberlin, J.E. Ripe was the Drowsy Hour: The Age of Oscar Wilde (New York, 1977)
Good evocation of the period, overambitious in places.
Coakley, Davis. The Importance of Being Irish (Dublin, 1994)
First full-length study to examine the importance of Wilde’s Irish roots.
Cohen, Philip K. The Moral Vision of Oscar Wilde (Cranbery, N.J., 1978)
Literary criticism.
Conrad, Tweed. Oscar Wilde in Quotation (Jefferson, N.C., 2006)
Contains 3099 Oscar Wilde quotations grouped thematically under 67 headings.
Cooper-Pritchard, A.H. Conversations with Oscar Wilde (London, 1931)
Fictional conversations between Wilde and his contemporaries.
Croft-Cooke, Rupert. Bosie: The Story of Lord Alfred Douglas (London, 1963)
Croft-Cooke, Rupert. The Unrecorded Life of Oscar Wilde (London, 1972)
Examination of Wilde’s sexuality. Curious lack of sympathy with both subject and his works.
Crosland, T. W. H. The First Stone: On Reading the Unpublished Parts of Oscar Wilde’s ‘De Profundis’ (London, 1912)
A vituperative attack on Wilde by one of Douglas’s cronies.
Davray, Henry-D. Oscar Wilde: La Tragédie finale (Paris, 1928)
Wilde’s last years chronicled by the translator of The Ballad.
Douglas, Lord Alfred. Oscar Wilde and Myself (London, 1914)
Written with T. W. H. Crossland. Very critical of Wilde. Full of denials and fabrications about which Douglas later recanted.
Douglas, Lord Alfred. The Autobiography (London, 1929)
Much taken up with attacks on Ross, Harris and Sherard.
Douglas, Lord Alfred. Without Apology (London, 1938)
Recognises error of his first book in 1914.
Douglas, Lord Alfred. Oscar Wilde: A Summing-Up (London, 1940)
Douglas’s final withdrawal of previous criticisms of Wilde.
Edwards, Owen Dudley. The Fireworks of Oscar Wilde (London, 1989)
The best excerpts from Wilde’s works with a splendidly idiosyncratic index.
Ellmann, Richard. The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde (New York, 1969)
Ellmann, Richard (ed.). Oscar Wilde: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs N.J.; London, 1969)
Ellmann, Richard. Oscar Wilde (London, 1987)
The best biography to date but must be read with Schroeder (see below).
Ervine, St John. Oscar Wilde: A Present Time Appraisal (London, 1951)
Unbalanced, overcritical, unfair but a period piece.
Fido, Martin. Oscar Wilde (London, 1973)
Copiously and sometimes interestingly illustrated but relies too heavily on dubious secondary sources.
Fletcher, Ian and John Stokes. ‘Oscar Wilde’ in Anglo-Irish Literature: A Review of Research, ed. Richard Finneran (New York, 1976), pp. 48-137
Fletcher, I
an and John Stokes. ‘Oscar Wilde’ in Recent Research in Anglo-Irish Writers, ed. Richard Finneran (New York, 1983), pp. 21-47
Both the above give an invaluable and critical survey of published work on Wilde, editions of his works and significant manuscripts discovered.
