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Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde stands as one of the most distinctive voices of the late 19th century, with works spanning poetry, criticism, fiction and drama. Renowned for his wit and flamboyant public persona, he became one of the defining literary figures of the fin de siècle.

Born in Dublin in 1854, Wilde went on to study at Dublin's Trinity College and then Oxford University. After graduating, he moved to London where he soon became known for his writing, which explored ideas of beauty, artifice and duality. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), distilled these ideas into a provocative exploration of vanity and moral decay, which shocked Victorian readers.

Wilde was particularly celebrated for his plays, with The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) establishing him as a leading dramatist of late-Victorian London — a first edition copy of the play sold for £138,600 at Christie’s in 2025. Other notable works include Lady Windermere's Fan (1892) and An Ideal Husband (1895). A prominent figure of the Aesthetic movement, Wilde championed 'art for art's sake'.

Behind the brilliance lay personal turmoil. Married to Constance Lloyd, Wilde later began a relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas. In 1895, at the height of his fame, he was convicted for ‘gross indecency’ and sentenced to two years of hard labour. While in prison, he composed a letter to Douglas, which was posthumously published under the title De Profundis. Wilde’s experience also shaped his later writing, including the introspective The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898). He died in Paris in 1900.

Wilde left behind a body of work as masterful, subversive and defiantly original as the man himself. As he famously wrote, ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)

Salomé . Paris : Librairie de l'Art indépendant - Londres : Elkin Mathews et John Lane, 1893.

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)

The Importance of Being Earnest. A Trivial Comedy for Serious People. By the Author of Lady Windermere's Fan . London: Leonard Smithers, 1899.

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900). The Picture of Dorian Gray . London, New York & Melbourne, Ward Lock and Co., 1891.

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)

The Picture of Dorian Gray . London, New York and Melbourne: Ward Lock and Co., 1891.

WILDE, Oscar (1864-1900)

Salomé. Drame en un acte. Paris: Paul Schmidt for Librairie de l'Art Indépendant, and Elkin Mathews and John Lane, London, 1893.

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)

Autograph manuscripts drafts for 17 epigrams on art, morality, life and education, n.p., n.d. [c.1888]

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)

The Importance of Being Earnest. A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by the Author of Lady Windermere's Fan . London: Chiswick Press for Leonard Smithers & Co., 1899.

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)

The Picture of Dorian Grey. London: Ward Lock and Co., [1891].

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900). Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime & Other Stories . London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., 1891.

[WILDE, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills (1854-1900).] The Ballad of Reading Gaol by C.3.3 . London: [The Chiswick Press for] Leonard Smithers, 1898.

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)

Salome. Drame en un acte. Paris: Paul Schmidt for Librairie de l'Art Independant and London: Elkin Mathews, 1893.

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)

The Sphinx . London: Elkin Mathews and John Lane. The Ballantyne Press, 1894.

[WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)]

The Ballad of Reading Gaol by C.3.3. London: Leonard Smithers, 1898.

[DARAGNÈS] -- WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900). Ballade de la geôle de Reading par C.3.3. traduite et préfacée par Henry-D. Davray et ornée de bois originaux de Daragnès. Paris: Léon Pichon, 1918.

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900). Autograph manuscript of the poem, 'Against the shifting agate skies' ('Les Ballons'), n.d., four stanzas of four lines each on one page, 4to (229 x 176mm) , (minor soiling and spotting), tipped into an album, olive morocco gilt by Wood, London. Provenance : John B. Stetson, Jr -- his sale, Anderson Galleries, 23 April 1920, lot 212 -- private collection.

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900).

The Picture of Dorian Gray . London: Ward Lock and Co., 1891.

The Happy Prince and Other Tales

Oscar Wilde

WILDE (O.). The Sphinx. London, Elkin Mathews & John Lane. At the Sign of the Bodley Head, 1894, in-4°, vélin décoré à rabats, dos lisse, non rogné, cordons d'attaches conservés ( Leighton ).

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

The Sphinx. 1894

WILDE, Oscar (1854-1900)

The Ballad of Reading Gaol by C.3.3. - La Ballade de la geole de Reading. Transcription française de Henry-D. Davray. Paris: Mercure de France, 1898.