" It is a man's duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life. "
— Henry Ward Beecher
Oscar Wilde | First Editions
1854 - 1900
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 - 30 November 1900) Irish writer and poet, hugely successful playwright and novelist, master of the bon mot and the pithy aphorism, the very soul of the late Victorian literary era and its tragic sacrifice on the altar of respectability and hypocrisy. Very few figures capture the late-Victorian, slightly decadent, slightly silly, slightly sadistic, insanely creative fin-de-siecle period so completely as Oscar Wilde. His reputation as the leading aesthete of his day, equal parts hero and villain depending upon which side of the aesthetic argument you came down on, is well known. Parodied in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Patience" 1881 he immediately caught the imagination of the public and with the sponsorship of John Murray and the assistance of the bizarre and enigmatic Colonel Morse Oscar embarked on a wildly successful tour of the US.
See below our stock of Oscar Wilde First Editions, fine bindings, sets and other collectible material.
Results 1 - 5 (of 5)
The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
London: Castle Press, 1948. [Literature] CASTLE PRESS EDITION. Octavo (23 x 15cm), pp.63; [1]. Publisher's cream cloth with blue label and gilt lettering to spine, illustrated dust-jacket with printed price of 8s. 6d. to front flap. Illustrated endpapers, black and white in-text illustrations throughout. Strong smell of damp, light toning..... More
Mervyn Peake / Oscar Wilde. Extracts from the Poems of Oscar Wilde with Sixteen Illustrations by Mervyn Peake and a Foreword by Maeve Gilmore.
London: Gordon Spilstead, 1980. [Illustrated Poetry] SIGNED LIMITED EDITION. Octavo (22 x 14cm), pp.47 [1]. With a black and white illustration by Peake facing every poem. Number 158 of 200 copies SIGNED by the illustrator's wife, Maeve Gilmore, in the publilsher's pink silk-covered boards with gilt titles to spine and..... More
Children In Prison and Other Cruelties of Prison Life.
London: Murdoch and Co., 1898. FIRST EDITION in book-form. Pamphlet, pp.16, printed wrappers. Trivial toning. A fine copy, but for the rust-through from the single staple at fold. The text of Wilde's celebrated letter to the Daily Chronicle, appearing on 28th May 1897, which concerned the affair of Warder T...... More
An Ideal Husband. By the Author of Lady Windermere's Fan.
London: Leonard Smithers and Co., 1899. [Literature] FIRST EDITION. Small quarto (21 x 16cm), pp.xvi; 214; [2], blank. Publisher's pink cloth with nouveau decoration in gilt, edges untrimmed. Engraved bookplate of Ernest Thornton-Smith to paste-down. Edges toned, deckles are dusty, covers with some expected soiling/handling to light coloured cloth, spine..... More
The Picture of Dorian Gray.
London: Ward, Lock, and Bowden Ltd., [1895]. [Literature] FIRST EDITION, SECOND ISSUE, showing the imprint as Ward Lock and Bowden (amended from Ward Lock & Co.). Octavo (20 x 14cm), pp.334. Bound in the original grey paper-covered bevelled boards with titles and ornate gilt decoration to upper, parchment-backed with gilt..... More
Results 1 - 5 (of 5)