WILDE, Oscar

Works

London: Methuen & Co., 1908. Item #06423

First Collected Edition
Handsomely Bound by Birdsall of Northampton

WILDE, Oscar. Works. London: Methuen & Co., [1908-1922]. The Picture of Dorian Gray with imprint: Paris: Charles Carrington, 1908.

First collected edition including For the Love of the King which was published in 1922.

One of 1,000 issued on handmade paper, out of a total edition of 1,080 sets.

Fifteen octavo volumes (8 1/4 x 5 3/4 inches; 209 x 146 mm.).

Handsomely bound ca. 1950 by Birdsall of Northampton and London (stamp-signed) in full light blue calf, covers with triple ruled borders, spines with five shallow raised bands, decoratively tooled in compartments, two red leather labels lettered in gilt, gilt decorated boards edges and turn-ins, pale blue marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, other uncut. Spines uniformly faded, one volume a little less so, otherwise a very fine set including the fifteenth volume For the Love of the King which was published later in 1922.

The first collected edition of the works of Wilde is still the most complete and correct. “The text is taken in most instances from the last editions issued under the superintendence of the author. In some cases the volumes contain additional matter which had not previously been reprinted, while some of the volumes contain matter here published for the first time” (Mason).

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish-born poet, dramatist, and novelist. “During his undergraduate years at Oxford and as a disciple of Walter Pater, Wilde became the leader of an aesthetic movement that advocated art for art’s sake. He attracted a great deal of attention with his aestheticism, and by wearing long hair, dressing eccentrically, and carrying flowers in his hands while lecturing…Wilde was accused of homosexual practices, was tried and found guilty, and was sentenced to imprisonment (1895-97)…On his release, physically, spiritually, and financially ruined, he went to Paris…[where] he lived in bitterness and despair until his death. Wilde’s works include Poems (1881); two collections of fairy stories, The Happy Prince, and Other Tales (1888) and The House of Pomegranates (1891); The Picture of Dorian Gray [1891], a novel; and many brilliantly witty plays, including Lady Windermere’s Fan [1892]; A Woman of No Importance (1893); Salomé [1894], written originally in French and used as the basis for Richard Strauss’s opera of the same title; An Ideal Husband (1895); and The Importance of Being Earnest [1895], often considered his masterpiece. [His poem] The Ballad of Reading Gaol [1898] and his [impassioned letter to his lover Lord Alfred Douglas] De Profundis [published post-humously in 1905] were products of his imprisonment” (Benét’s Reader’s Encyclopedia).

Mason, pp. 459-460.

Price: $4,500.00