Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900
Biographical note
Poet and dramatist, son of Sir William Wilde, the eminent surgeon, was born at Dublin, and educated there at Trinity College and at Oxford. Known for his barbed wit, he was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. He was one of the founders of the modern cult of the æsthetic. Among his writings are Poems (1881), The Picture of Dorian Gray, a novel, and several plays, including Lady Windermere¿s Fan, A Woman of no Importance, and The Importance of being Earnest.
He was convicted of a serious offence, and after his release from prison went abroad and died at Paris.
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Works
Poetry
- Collected Poems [ read | download ]
- Ravenna [1878] [read]
- Miscellaneous Poems [1881] [read]
- The Burden of Itys [1890] [read]
- Charmides [1890] [read]
- Eleutheria [1890] [read]
- Flowers of Gold [1890] [read]
- Flower or Love [1890] [read]
- The Fourth Movement [1890] [read]
- The Garden of Eros [1890] [read]
- Humanitad [1890] [read]
- Panthea [1890] [read]
- Rosa Mystica [1890] [read]
- Impressions De Theatre [1890] [read]
- Wind Flowers [1890] [read]
- The Sphinx [1894] [read]
- The Ballad of Reading Gaol [1898] [read]
Plays
- Vera; or, The Nihilists [1880]
- The Duchess of Padua [1883]
- Salomé (French version) (1893, first performed in Paris 1896)
- Lady Windermere's Fan [1892]
- A Woman of No Importance [1893]
- Salomé: A Tragedy in One Act: Translated from the French of Oscar Wilde by Lord Alfred Douglas with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley [1894]
- An Ideal Husband [1895] (text)
- The Importance of Being Earnest [1895] (text)
- La Sainte Courtisane and A Florentine Tragedy Fragmentary. First published 1908 in Methuen's Collected Works
(Dates are dates of first performance, which approximate better with the probable date of composition than dates of publication.)
Prose
- The Canterville Ghost [1887]
- The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888, fairy tales) [3]
- Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, and other stories [1891] [ read | print | download ]
- Intentions (1891, critical dialogues and essays)
- The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891, Wilde's only novel)
- A House of Pomegranates (1891, fairy tales)
- The Soul of Man under Socialism (First published in the Pall Mall Gazette, 1891, first book publication 1904)
- De Profundis [1905]
- The Rise of Historical Criticism (published in incomplete form 1905 and completed form in 1908)
