Oscar Wilde - Complete Works of Oscar Wilde

The Collected Works also contained a number of previously unpublished pieces: ‘La Sainte Courtisane’, ‘A Florentine Tragedy’, the full text of ‘The Rise of Historical Criticism’, the poem ‘To L. L.’ and the four lectures ‘The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Two previously unpublished poems ‘Pan’ and ‘Désespoir’ were first published in Methuen’s second collected edition of 1909.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 All, however, were superseded by the authoritative Letters of Oscar Wilde ed.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)