A Tour of My Books ~ Oscar Wilde

Were Oscar Wilde with us today he'd have a blog, a late night television talk show, have a newspaper or magazine column ... or, as he once did, edit a magazine ... as well as have his plays, novels and essays published and re-published. Wilde was a non-stop talker with the wit, intellect, talent and charm to raise his words to a level beyond the idle chatter of today.

Here's a small tour of Wilde's written works, plays, essays, poems, plus two early biographies in my collection.

Intentions, by Oscar Wilde, published by Thomas B. Mosher, 19o4.
A small quarto, vellum wraps over cardboard boards, one of 600 copies on hand-made Van Gelder paper. Intentions contains four of Wilde's critical essays on art and literature: The Decay of Lying, Pen, Pencil and Poison, The Critic as Artist and The Truth of Masks. These essays are as relevant today ... perhaps more so in our irony-sodden age ... as they were in the 1890s.

De Profundis, by Oscar Wilde, published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1905.
Thanks largely to the efforts of Robert Ross, Wilde's works began to see the light of day after nearly ten years in eclipse. Starting with an introduction by Ross, De Profundis is Wilde's letter to Lord Alfred Douglas explaining Wilde's re-evaluation of his life after two years imprisonment. There's an interesting dedicatiion written on the fep:

"To Mrs. Susan Mitchell Hopkins, from Waldo H. Dunn, August 21, 1919. A memorial of the summer of 1919."



Epigrams and Aphorisms, by Oscar Wilde, published by John W. Luce & Co., 1905.
It's clear that the John W. Luce publishing house was taking a tentative step in re-publishing Wilde's works. This book is nicely but cautiously set up with a lengthy introduction by George Henry Sargent and a variety of Wilde's epigrams and aphorisms set in rather large size. You can imagine the editors in the conference room saying "It's nice. It's safe. If this goes south we haven't lost a lot of money."

Salome, by Oscar Wilde, published by John W. Luce, 1906.
A year later John W. Luce & Co. realized there was an audience for Wilde and brought out a very nice edition of one of Wilde's most controversial works, Salome. Quarto, with a Beardsley illustration stamped in gold on the cover boards, this edition contains the thirteen illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. All in all, a very nice edition and one that can be obtained fairly inexpensively.

Poems in Prose, by Oscar Wilde, published by Thomas B. Mosher, 1906.
Part of the Brocade Series, Poems in Prose gets a deluxe treatment with floral decorated cover wraps over vellum covers and a glassine wrap over that. 16mo, on Japan vellum, floral decorated slipcase (split). A foreward by Mosher introduces these achingly beautiful, mystic prose-poems.

The Soul of Man Under Socialism, by Oscar Wilde, published by Thomas B. Mosher, 1909.
One of 600 copies, third edition, small 8vo, green paper over cardboard boards, slipcased (split), Van Gelder paper, colour illustration tipped in. At a time when the Left in the States is wandering in confusion, Wilde's The Soul of Man Under Socialism is vital and required reading. "The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim ... the people who do the most harmare the people who try to do the most good." Rather than hand outs, which do nothing but keep the poor in their place, the poor should be provided the means to raise themselves out of their poverty ... education, decent jobs and homes. And that's just for starters. Required reading.

The Sphinx, by Oscar Wilde, published by Thomas B. Mosher, 1911.
Part of the Venetian Series, 24mo, decorated floral wraps over cardstock cover boards. The Sphinx, dedicated to Marcel Schwob, is a brilliant piece of Symbolist decadence.

Impressions of America, by Oscar Wilde, privately printed by Mildred Sherrod Bissinger, 1975.
It was impossible to resist this privately printed little book, the 64th of 100 copies. While it is not as ornate as anything from the Roycrofters or Thomas B. Mosher, this book has it's own charm. Wilde was a huge hit when he toured the nation giving his lectures on the English Arts and Crafts movement. His long hair, his velvet knee breeches & the lily he carried with him earned him gallons of ink in the American press. He earned the respect of the miners of Leadville, Colorado with his lecture on Benvenuto Cellini and being able to go drink-for-drink with them ... Wilde, being Irish, drank them under the table. And so in this small essay we have Wilde's vignettes of America just after the Civil War and while you might think that Wilde would have found this the most barbarous nation on the planet, Wilde found Americans to be charming, vigorous and democratic.

Oscar Wilde, by Frank Harris, Dell Publishing Company, 1960.
Frank Harris was one of the few friends of Wilde's who stuck by him after his disgrace and imprisonment. James Whistler and Walter Sickert publicly snubbed Wilde, his publisher dropped him and the rest of his friends headed for the hills during the last years of his life. Harris presents Wilde as he was, reeling off epigrams and witty remarks, living dangerously in Paris and London and wrecked after his imprisonment. Well worth reading.

Oscar Wilde and the Yellow Nineties, by Frances Winward, published by Harper & Brothers, 1941.
I'm not quite sure how the 1890s is equated with "yellow," though I suppose it has something to do with the literary periodical The Yellow Book. If that's the case, then it's a clear mistake. Although The Yellow Book was published by Wilde's publisher, John Lane, Wilde never wrote for nor was published in The Yellow Book and he didn't like it much. There's a notion that The Yellow Book was a clandestine gay publication, which is rubbish as it presumes a connectiion between Wilde and The Yellow Book which didn't exist. The 1890s were known as the Mauve Decade because chemical dyes were first manufactured and mauve became a favourite colour in men's and women's clothing.
Well, other than that, this is a very good biography on Wilde ... but there are a few screamers here such as the myth that Wilde was reading a copy of The Yellow Book when he was arrested. He wasn't.
There's a curious introduction to this biography by Lord Alfred Douglas. In his later life Douglas had developed a taste for vexacious litigation when anyone mentioned his name in connection with Wilde's. Douglas sued Frank Harris in 1916 over his biography of Wilde and forced Harris to alter a few passages. Clearly there were threats of litigation in this case, too. Douglas does his best to disavow any "relationship" with Wilde and claims that were it not for him Wilde would never have written anything of importance. Douglas goes on to claim the status of Major Poet ... he acutal capitalizes this phrase ... showers himself with utterly undeserved laurels. Bitter and feckless, typical Douglas.