Books about Oscar Wilde

 

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Here is the most comprehensive list possible of every book ever written about Oscar Wilde, organized by category:

FULL BIOGRAPHIES

  • Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions — Frank Harris (1916)
  • The Life of Oscar Wilde — Hesketh Pearson (1946)
  • Oscar Wilde — Richard Ellmann (1987) — winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award; the most widely cited biography, though noted for factual errors
  • Oscar Wilde: A Long and Lovely Suicide — Melissa Knox (1994) — a psycho-biography
  • Oscar Wilde: A Certain Genius — Barbara Belford (2000)
  • The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde — Joseph Pearce (2000) — focuses on his Catholicism and spiritual life
  • The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde — Neil McKenna (2003) — billed as the first full account of his sexual and emotional life
  • Oscar: A Life — Matthew Sturgis (2018) — widely regarded as the most thorough and accurate modern biography

MEMOIRS & ACCOUNTS BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM

  • Oscar Wilde and Myself — Lord Alfred Douglas (1914) — ghost-written in part by T.W.H. Crosland; vindictive and partisan
  • Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up — Lord Alfred Douglas (1940) — more sympathetic later account
  • Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions — Frank Harris (1916)
  • In Memoriam, Oscar Wilde — André Gide (1910)
  • Son of Oscar Wilde — Vyvyan Holland (1954; revised by Merlin Holland 1989)
  • L'esprit d'Oscar Wilde — Thomas Louis (1920, French)

FOCUSED BIOGRAPHIES (SPECIFIC PERIODS OR TOPICS)

  • Oscar Wilde: The Aftermath — H. Montgomery Hyde (1963) — the only book focused solely on Wilde's two years in prison
  • Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years — Nicholas Frankel (2017) — Wilde's life after prison until his death; counters the idea his last years were purely tragic
  • Oscar's Ghost — Laura Lee (2017) — the battle over Wilde's posthumous legacy between Bosie and Robbie Ross
  • Wilde in America — David M. Friedman (2014) — focused on his American lecture tour
  • Oscar Wilde: A Vagabond with a Mission — Geoff Dibb (2013) — the only book dedicated to his lecture tours of Britain and Ireland 1883–1889
  • Oscar Wilde's Scandalous Summer — Antony Edmonds (2014) — the summer of 1894 in Worthing when he wrote The Importance of Being Earnest
  • Declaring His Genius — Roy Morris Jr. (2013) — the eleven-month American speaking tour

BOOKS BY WILDE'S FAMILY

  • Son of Oscar Wilde — Vyvyan Holland (1954)
  • The Wilde Album — Merlin Holland (1997) — photographs, images, previously unpublished memorabilia including all 27 Sarony portraits
  • Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde — edited by Merlin Holland (2003) — uncensored transcripts of the trials

BOOKS ON WILDE'S LETTERS & DOCUMENTS

  • The Letters of Oscar Wilde — edited by Rupert Hart-Davis (1962)
  • The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde — Merlin Holland & Rupert Hart-Davis (2000)
  • Constance Wilde's Autograph Book 1886–1896 — edited by Devon Cox

ACADEMIC LITERARY CRITICISM & SCHOLARSHIP

  • Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study — Arthur Ransome (1912) — the first literary study; resulted in a libel suit from Lord Alfred Douglas
  • Oscar Wilde: The Critical Heritage — Karl Beckson (1970) — a collection of contemporary reviews of Wilde's books and plays
  • Idylls of the Marketplace: Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public — Regenia Gagnier (1986)
  • Oscar Wilde Revalued — Ian Small (1993)
  • Oscar Wilde's Profession: Writing and the Culture Industry in the Late Nineteenth Century — Josephine M. Guy and Ian Small (2000)
  • Oscar Wilde: Recent Research — Ian Small (2000)
  • Studying Oscar Wilde — Josephine M. Guy and Ian Small (2006)
  • John Sloan's Oscar Wilde (Authors in Context series, Oxford World's Classics, 2003)
  • Critical Essays on Oscar Wilde — edited by Regenia Gagnier (1991)
  • Critical Insights: Oscar Wilde — edited by Frederick S. Roden (Salem Press)
  • The Invention of Oscar Wilde — Nicholas Frankel
  • Oscar Wilde and Classical Antiquity — edited by Kathleen Riley, Alastair J.L. Blanshard, and Iarla Manny (2017)
  • Oscar Wilde's Elegant Republic: Transformation, Dislocation, Fantasy in Fin-de-Siècle Paris — David Charles Rose (2015)
  • Additions and Corrections to Richard Ellmann's Oscar Wilde — Horst Schroeder (2nd ed., 2002) — scholarly corrections to Ellmann's errors
  • Oscar Wilde and the Poetics of Ambiguity — various scholars
  • The Fall of the House of Wilde — Emer O'Sullivan (2016) — focuses on Wilde's mother, Lady Jane Wilde ("Speranza")

BOOKS ON WILDE'S STAGE AND SCREEN LEGACY

  • Oscar Wilde on Stage and Screen — Robert Tanitch (1999) — comprehensive record of all stage and screen presentations from 1880 to 1999

BOOKS ON WILDE'S READING LIFE & LIBRARY

  • Oscar's Books (UK) / Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde (US) — Thomas Wright (2008/2009) — tracks books from Wilde's personal library containing his marginal notes

BOOKS ON WILDE'S RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY

  • The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde — Joseph Pearce (2000)
  • Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture — Frederick Roden (2002)
  • Oscar Wilde's Mysticism in De Profundis — various scholars

BOOKS ON WILDE & QUEER IDENTITY / SEXUALITY

  • The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde — Neil McKenna (2003)
  • Oscar Wilde: A Life in Letters — Merlin Holland (2004)
  • Wilde's Women — Eleanor Fitzsimons (2015) — the women who shaped and were shaped by Wilde
  • Oscar Wilde and Modern Culture: The Making of a Legend — edited by Joseph Bristow
  • Wilde Discoveries — edited by Joseph Bristow

BOOKS ON WILDE'S TOMB & MEMORIAL

  • Jacob Epstein's Studies for the Tomb of Oscar Wilde — Simon Wilson (2020)

BOOKS ON WILDE'S AMERICAN TOUR

  • Wilde in America — David M. Friedman (2014)
  • Declaring His Genius — Roy Morris Jr. (2013)
  • Oscar Wilde's Lecture Tours of Britain and Ireland — Geoff Dibb (2013)

EDITED SCHOLARLY ANNOTATED EDITIONS

  • The Annotated Prison Writings of Oscar Wilde — edited by Nicholas Frankel
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Annotated, Uncensored Edition — edited by Nicholas Frankel (2012, Harvard/Belknap)
  • The Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde — edited by Nicholas Frankel (Harvard University Press)
  • The Short Stories of Oscar Wilde — edited by Nicholas Frankel
  • Oscar Wilde: The Complete Interviews — compiled and edited (recent publication by Wilde scholar and blogger)

NOVELS & FICTION ABOUT WILDE

  • Beyond His Means — Sewell Stokes (1955) — a novel based on Wilde's life
  • The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde — Peter Ackroyd (1983) — a novel in the form of Wilde's fictional memoir
  • The God of Mirrors — Robert Reilly (1987)
  • Stephen and Mr. Wilde — Jim Bartley (1994) — Wilde and a fictional Black manservant during his American tour
  • Sherlock Holmes and the Mysterious Friend of Oscar Wilde — Russell A. Brown (1990)
  • Oscar Over Here — Romulus Linney (1999) — Wilde's lectures in Leadville, Colorado and a death fantasy conversation with Jesus Christ
  • Melmoth (part of the graphic epic Cerebus) — Dave Sim (1991) — a partially fictionalized graphic account of Wilde's last days

BOOKS ON WILDE'S MOTHER (RELATED)

  • The Fall of the House of Wilde — Emer O'Sullivan (2016) — biography of Lady Jane Wilde ("Speranza"), Oscar's mother

OSCAR WILDE SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS

  • Oscar Wilde: A Vagabond with a Mission — Geoff Dibb
  • Jacob Epstein's Studies for the Tomb of Oscar Wilde — Simon Wilson
  • The Woman's World — with introduction by Eleanor Fitzsimons (facsimile edition)
  • Oscar Wilde: The Women of Homer (2008)
  • Various issues and special publications of The Wildean journal (the society's scholarly publication)

Note: There are hundreds of additional academic articles, dissertations, and essays about Wilde published in journals like The Wildean, Victorian Literature and Culture, and Irish Studies, as well as many foreign-language books about him published in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese — the full scholarly body of work on Wilde is enormous and still growing.


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