Oscar Wilde Personal Library – The Shaping of a Mind

Oscar Wilde Personal Library – The Shaping of a Mind

Although we  are celebrating Banned Books Week September 21−27, 2014, I have decided that I would present Oscar Wilde's personal library because his play Salome was banned and he had to remove parts of his book, The Picture of Dorian Gray because it was considered homoerotic and suggestive. Over 120 years later, Harvard University Press published the original text of The Picture of Dorian Gray. I think the version of the book I read is probably the version where chunks of the story were removed. If you have not read The Picture of Dorian Gray, read The Picture of Dorian Gray (The Original 1890 Uncensored Edition + The Expanded and Revised 1891 Edition). This post would not have been possible without Library Thing.

Related Post

Welcome to Banned Books Week – September 21−27, 2014

Mini Biography of Oscar Wilde

Born on October 16 in 1854 in Dublin, Oscar Wilde was a poet, novelist, critic, essayist, and playwright. Wilde had a solid education, “he and his brother attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, where Oscar's talents won him a scholarship to Trinity College, Dublin. There Wilde became an aesthete, learned about classical Greek civilization and Greek pederasty, and won the Berkeley gold medal for Greek. He then won a scholarship in classics to Magdalen College at Oxford, which he attended from 1874 to 1878. There he discovered the writing of John Ruskin and Walter Pater, began collecting blue china and elaborate clothing, and decided to become an art critic.” Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender

Oscar Wilde married Constance Lloyd on May 29, 1884, and they had two sons shortly after. Wilde ignored his wife when she did not lose the weight from her pregnancy. Prior to his marriage, he had a lucrative career lecturing, and had a successful tour in North America. He performed journalistic roles – reviewed the Pall Mall Gazette from 1887 – 1889, then became the editor of Woman's World. After his journalistic roles, his prose writings were included in the collection Intentions. As was the case at the time, his only book, The Picture of Dorian Gray appeared in serial form in Lippincott's Magazine.

Although Wilde had married, he had homosexual relations before his marriage, and after its deterioration, he had some serious same sex relationships. Unfortunately, at the time, sodomy was a felony and he was tried and sentenced to two years of hard labor in 1895. He died penniless in 1900, three years after his release from prison.

Success is not only about money, Oscar Wilde is successful because of the impact that his work has had on others.

Related Posts

Book Review – The Canterville Ghost By Oscar Wilde
The Model Millionaire by Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde – Book Review

Books Included in Oscar Wilde's Personal Library

1. A Yellow Aster, Iota
2. The Complete Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Algernon Charles Swinburne
3. The Poetical Works of John Milton. [Includes Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, other poems], John Milton
4. The Poetical Works of John Keats, Edited by William T. Arnold, John Keats
5. The Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry, John Veitch
6. The Art of Thomas Hardy, Lionel Pigot Johnson
7. Romances of Chivalry: Told and Illustrated in FacSimile, John Ashton
8. Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, Richard G. Moulton
9. A Group of Noble Dames, Thomas Hardy
10. Poems upon Several Occasions, William Congreve
11. The Dramatic Works Of William Congreve, Esq, William Congreve
12. Sententiae Artis: First Principles of Art, Harry Quilter
13. The Collected Works of Émile Zola (Unexpurgated Edition) (Halcyon Classics), Émile Zola
14. The Works of Alexandre Dumas: 19 Collected Novels and Short Stories (Halcyon Classics), Alexandre Dumas
15. Pastels in Prose, Stuart Merrill
16. Poems By the Way, William Morris
17. Ballads and Narrative Poems, Dante Gabriel Rossetti
18. A verbatim copy of the Parnell Commission report with complete index and notes
19. Marius the Epicurean (Penguin Classics), Walter Pater
20. Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Hall Caine
21. Dramas in Four Volumes, Victor Hugo
22. The End of the Middle Ages; Essays and Questions in History, A. Mary F. Robinson
23. Renaissance In Italy The Revival Of Learning, John Addington Symonds
24. Annals of the French Stage from Its Origin to the Death of Racine: 1668-1699, Frederick William Hawkins
25. The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley – Complete, Percy Bysshe Shelley
26. The Poetical Works of John Keats Given from His Own Editions and Other Authentic Sources and Collated with Many Manuscripts, John Keats
27. A Manual of English Literature, and of the History of the English Language, From the Norman Conquest: With Numerous Specimens [ 1867 ], George Lillie Craik
28. A history of English dramatic literature to the death of Queen Anne, Sir. A. W. Ward
29. Shakespeare: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art, Edward Dowden
30. The Shakespeare key : unlocking the treasures of his style, elucidating the peculiarities of his construction, and displaying the beauties of his expression; forming a companion to “The complete concordance to Shakespeare”., Charles Cowden Clarke
31. Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama, John Addington Symonds
32. The Works of Edgar Allan Poe with an Introduction and Memoir by Richard Henry Stoddard [6 volumes, fine binding], Edgar Allan Poe
33. Shakespeare's Sonnets Never Before Interpreted; His Private Friends Identified Together with a Recovered Likeness of Himself, Gerald Massey
34. The history of English dramatic poetry to the time of Shakespeare: And Annals of the stage to the restoration,, John Payne Collier
35. The Eighteenth Century: Its Institutions, Customs and Costumes France, 1700-1789, Paul Lacroix
36. Salomé: A Tragedy in One Act, Oscar Wilde
37. Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People, Israel Zangwill
38. Chatterton: a Biographical Study, Sir Daniel Wilson
39. Natural History (Classics), the Elder. Pliny
40. The Dialogues of Plato (Bantam Classic), Plato.
41. The Satyricon (Oxford World's Classics), Petronius Arbiter
42. Leaves of Grass (Signet Classics), Walt Whitman
43. The Duchess of Malfi (Dover Thrift Editions), John Webster
44. Virgin Soil – A Novel, Ivan Turgenev
45. Resurrection (Dover Thrift Editions), Leo Tolstoy
46. In Pursuit of Happiness, graf Leo Tolstoygraf Leo Tolstoy
47. Polikushka and Two Hussars, graf Leo Tolstoy
48. The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. (English Library), William Makepeace Thackeray
49. Tennyson: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets), Baron Alfred Tennyson
50. Idylls of the King (Penguin Classics), Baron Alfred Tennyson
51. The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Tommaso Campanella; Now for the First Time Translated into Rhymed English, Michel Angelo Buonarroti
52. A Problem in Modern Ethics being an inquiry into the phenomenon of sexual inversion, addressed especially to Medical Psychologists and Jurists, John Addington Symonds
53. Poems & Ballads (First Series), Algernon Charles Swinburne
54. Erechtheus; a Tragedy, Algernon Charles Swinburne
55. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
56. The Master of Ballantrae: A Winter's Tale, Robert Louis Stevenson
57. Kidnapped (Bantam Classics), Robert Louis Stevenson
58. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Signet Classics), Robert Louis Stevenson
59. The Black Arrow
60. The plays of Shakespeare (Twelve Plays by Shakespeare (Dover Thrift Editions)), William Shakespeare
61. Shakespeare's Sonnets
62. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, his family-letters, Dante Gabriel Rossetti
63. The Renaissance of Art in France, Mrs. Mark Pattison
64. Studies in the History of the Renaissance (Oxford World's Classics), Walter Pater
65. Pensees (Penguin Classics), Blaise Pascal
66. Evidence of Christianity, William Paley
67. Ollendorff's New Method of Learning to Read, Write, and Speak the German Language: To Which Is Added a Systematic Outline of German Grammar, Heinrich Gottfried Ollendorff
68. Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail, Alfred Trübner Nutt
69. The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated, John Henry Newman
70. A History of Ancient Greek Literature (Classic Reprint), Gilbert Murray
71. A Child of the Jago (Oxford World's Classics), Arthur Morrison
72. The House of the Wolfings, William Morris
73. Michel de Montaigne – The Complete Essays (Penguin Classics), Michel de Montaigne
74. The History of Rome (Dover Books on History, Political and Social Science), Theodor Mommsen
75. The History of the Jews, Henry Hart Milman
76. History of Latin Christianity, Henry Hart Milman
77. Utilitarianism and On Liberty: Including ‘Essay on Bentham' and Selections from the Writings of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin, John Stuart Mill
78. One of Our Conquerors: Complete, George Meredith
79. Christopher Marlowe: The Complete Plays, Christopher Marlowe
80. The mirror of music, Stanley V. Makower
81. Le Morte Darthur: The Winchester Manuscript (Oxford World's Classics), Sir Thomas Malory
82. The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Omar Khayyam
83. Epic and Romance Essays on Medieval Literature, W. P. Ker
84. The history of England (The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. From Henry VII. to Mary), David Hume
85. The Rogue's March, a Romance, E. W. Hornung
86. The Odyssey of Homer, Homer
87. The Iliad of Homer, Homer
88. The Ambassador: A Comedy in Four Acts, John Oliver Hobbes
89. Dante's Divina Commedia: Its Scope and Value, Franz Hettinger
90. The Life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim, Known By the Name of Paracelsus (Classic Reprint), Franz Hartmann
91. A history of Greece (History of Greece, Volume 1: Legendary Greece), George Grote
92. Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales, Jacob Grimm
93. The wonderful city of Tokio: or Further adventures of the Jewett Family and their friend Oto Nambo, Edward Greey
94. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Penguin Classics), Edward Gibbon
95. The Faithful Shepherdess, John Fletcher
96. The Letters of Gustave Flaubert: 1830-1857, Gustave Flaubert
97. The Little Flowers of St. Francis, St. Francis of Assisi
98. The English Stage Being an Account of the Victorian Drama, Augustin Filon
99. Poems of R. W. Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson
100. The Collected Poems of Lord Alfred Douglas – Primary Source Edition, Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas
101. Vivian Grey, Benjamin Disraeli
102. Old Curiosity Shop (Wordsworth Classics), Charles Dickens
103. A Journal of the Plague Year (Penguin Classics), Daniel Defoe
104. The Divine Comedy / La Divina Commedia – Parallel Italian / English Translation, Dante Alighieri
105. A Compendious History of English Literature, and of the English Language from the Norman Conquest, George L. Craik
106. Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
107. The Fourteen Orations (Philippics) of Cicero against Marcus Antonius, Marcus Tullius Cicero
108. Dante & other Essays, R. W. Church
109. Sartor Resartus (Oxford World's Classics), Thomas Carlyle
110. The French Revolution, Thomas Carlyle
111. History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Called Frederick The Great (1858-65), Thomas Carlyle
112. Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, William Carleton
113. Burns: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets), Robert Burns
114. The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan
115. Matthew Arnold: The Complete Poems (Annotated), Matthew Arnold
116. The Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford World's Classics), Aristotle
117. Agamemnon (The Oresteia: Agamemnon; The Libation Bearers; The Eumenides), Aeschylus
118. Selected Poems (Penguin Classics), Matthew Arnold
119. Art and Art Industries in Japan: With numerous illustrations, Sir Rutherford Alcock

Oscar Wilde’s Published Works Include

 The Soul of Man Under Socialism and Selected Critical Prose (Penguin Classics) The Critic as Artist: (annotated) (Oscar Wilde Collection Book 5) Pen, Pencil and Poison: A Study in Green The Decay of Lying an Observation The Portrait of Mr W.H. (Annotated) De Profundis and Other Prison Writings (Penguin Classics) Lady Windmere's Fan An Ideal Husband (Dover Thrift Editions) Salome (Dover Fine Art, History of Art) The Picture of Dorian Gray (Dover Thrift Editions)

&

1. The Importance of Being Earnest
2. Lady Windmere's Fan
3. An Ideal Husband (Dover Thrift Editions)
4. Salomé (Dover Thrift Editions)
5. The Picture of Dorian Gray (Dover Thrift Editions)
6. A House of Pomegranates
7. The Happy Prince, and Other Tales
8. The Portrait Of Mr. W. H.
9. De Profundis
10. The Decay of Lying (Oneworld Classics)
11. Pen, Pencil and Poison a Study in Green
12. The Critic as Artist (Upon the Importance of Doing Nothing and Discussing Everything)
13. The Soul of Man under Socialism

Please take the conversation to my  Facebook page. You can still join the Read the World Challenge – it’s an extreme reading challenge.

Book links are affiliate links.