215 résultats
187811085Oxford: Thos. Shrimpton and Son 1878. First Edition. Sewn binding. Very good . Octavo 16pp. First and only issue with the Oxford crest on the front wrapper and title page there were pirated editions that lacked these. A nice sound copy internally lovely with the original grey-green wrappers expertly backed onto sympathetic archival paper. Overall very good or better. A fragile publication and among the most elusive of Wilde volumes. The Newdigate Prize awarded since 1806 is given to the best composition in English verse by an undergraduate student at Oxford. A strong effort right out of the gate from the short-lived but highly influential Anglo-Irish writer. Mason 301. Thos. Shrimpton and Son unknown
1899127644David Nutt 1899. Hardcover. Very Good. 6x0x9. 1899 David Nutt second edition illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood including tissue guarded frontis. Tight binding ownership ink to front paste down. Illustrated front board shows water spots. Please email for photos. David Nutt hardcover
189026040071890. pirated first. hardcover. very good. Pirated first edition. Book very good foxing throughoutsome soiling to covers former owner's one-line writing to front free end paper. unknown
184081636Dublin: William Curry Jun. And Company. 1840. 2 volumes vol Ipp xvi 464 & vol II pp viii 495 frontis both vols water stained to verso text ills new endpapers both vols signed R. Hoddle Surveyor-General of Victoria top of t.p. both well recased half calf with green cloth maroon title pieces darker stain to front cloth vol I. Sir William Robert Wills Wilde was an Irish surgeon author and also the father of Oscar Wilde. Account of his travels as medical attendant to Robert Meilklam. Half calf. William Curry, Jun. And Company unknown
1886d2793London: Kegan Paul Trench & Co. G : in good condition. Covers rubbed and soiled. Eps darkened. Fold-out repaired with archive tape. 1886. First Edition. Blue hardback boards with cream vellum spines. 320mm x 240mm 13" x 9". vi 160pp; viii 160pp iv; vii 160pp plates. 37 plates 24 b/w 13 sepia 1 fold-out. Published 1886-18878. With Glasgow Arts Club bookplate. Heavy set extra shipping needed for overseas. . Kegan Paul, Trench & Co hardcover
1894191028Oxford: J. Vincent; Simpkin Marshall Hamilton Kent & Co. London 1894. An uncommon parody of Wilde First edition one of 750 copies of this Oxford play satirizing Oscar Wilde. The authors of this anonymous parody an entertaining imitation of the classical Greek comedy of Aristophanes were three Oxford undergraduates. Leopold Amery 1873-1955 later a prominent journalist and conservative politician. Francis Wrigley Hirst 1873-1953 later a successful journalist editor of The Economist and biographer of Thomas Jefferson. Little is known about Henry Alford Antony Cruso besides that he published another drama in 1907. The initialism Y.T.O. comprises the last letter of their surnames. Octavo. Original buff wrappers front cover lettered in green. Housed in a custom green cloth slipcase. Booklabel of Timothy D'Arch Smith b. 1936 the British author and co-founder of Victim Press; illustrated bookplate of Jeremy J. Mason designed by David Ward and dated 1974 on initial leaf. Spine a little chipped wrappers toned and soiled edges nicked sporadic foxing. A good copy. Mason 685. hardcover
1893193515London: Elkin Mathews and John Lane 1893. Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it First edition one of 500 trade copies of Wilde's first comedy play produced at the St James's Theatre on 20 February 1892. An instant success it is considered "revolutionary in its mingling of the vocabulary of comedy the potential of tragedy and the insistence on realism" ODNB. Cigarette in hand Wilde made his legendary curtain call on the opening night: "Your appreciation has been most intelligent. I congratulate you on the great success of your performance which persuades me that you think almost as highly of the play as I do myself." An additional 50 large-paper copies were also issued. Small quarto. With 16 pp. publisher's catalogue dated September 1893 at end. Original pink cloth spine lettered in gilt stylized flower and leaf motifs by Charles Shannon in gilt to spine and covers edges untrimmed. Contemporary black ink ownership inscription of Amy Scorer to front free endpaper a couple of marginal annotations in pencil. Spine toned extremities a little worn scattered marks to covers ring mark to rear: a very good copy. Mason 357. hardcover
1898183481London: Leonard Smithers 1898. For he who lives more lives than one more deaths than one must die First edition one of 800 unnumbered copies printed on handmade paper; a further 30 copies on japon were published simultaneously. The first edition sold out rapidly and a second edition was issued within weeks. Octavo. Original white quarter cloth spine lettered in gilt light brown cloth sides edges untrimmed. Housed in a custom yellow cloth chemise and quarter calf with yellow cloth slipcase. Bookplate and shelf-label of John Sowden; unrelated contemporary ownership inscription to title page. Spine browned soiling to covers ends and corners bumped damp stain and browning to endpapers spots of foxing to contents. A good copy. Mason 371. hardcover
1899WE16717London: Leonard Smithers 1899. First edition. Hardcover. Very Good. London 1899: Leonard Smithers and Co. First edition one of 1000 copies only. Octavo. Lavender cloth decorated in gilt and with spine lettering gilt. Fore edges uncut. 213 pp. A tight example very good with three very small chips along the rear gutter edge and a approximately ½†square chip to the rear area of the foot of the spine strip. Leonard Smithers hardcover
1891139780London: James R. Osgood 1891. First edition of this collection of Wilde's humorous mystery stories published the same year as the first edition in book form of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Octavo original stiff paper-covered boards. In good condition. Very rare. Wilde’s “theme is not as is often supposed art’s divorce from life but its inescapable arraignment by experience. His creative works almost always end in unmasking. The hand that adjusts the green carnation suddenly shakes an admonitory finger. While the ultimate virtue in Wilde’s essays is in make-believe the denouement of his dramas and narratives is that masks have to go. We must acknowledge what we are. Wilde at least was keen to do so. Though he offered himself as the apostle of pleasure his created world contains much pain†Ellmann xvi. In addition to the title story Wilde's Lord Arthur Savile's Crime & Other Stories contains The Sphinx withoout a Secret The Canterville Ghost and The Model Millionaire. James R. Osgood hardcover
1878236London: Thos. Shrimpton and Son 1878. Very good in original gray-green printed wrappers which are a bit browned at edges and with a few small chips. Now housed in a custom chemise and green morocco-backed slipcase. First Edition. With crest on wrapper title page and with woodcut on the last page. Wilde's first book.<br /> <br /> Wilde's poem was the Newdigate Prize winner for 1878 presented at Oxford University for best poetry. "During a vacation ramble in 1877 Wilde started from Greece and visiting Ravenna by chance on the way he obtained material for a poem on that ancient city and singularly enough Ravenna was afterwards given out as the topic for the Newdigate competition." Hamilton The Aesthetic Movement in England as quoted by Mason pg. 243.<br /> <br /> 8vo. 16pp. Mason pg. 241. Thos. Shrimpton and Son unknown
1888111490David Nutt 1888-01-01. First Edition. hardcover. Good. 9x6x1. 1888 David Nutt first edition in paper covered boards spine is chipped shows age tone and fox binding is tender.Plate of the Happy Prince loose and laid in. Bookplate to front paste down. F34 Please email for photos. David Nutt hardcover
1894186848London: John Lane at the Sign of the Bodley Head 1894. Mr Oscar Wilde is not in the house First edition one of 500 trade copies. The opening show of this satirical play on English manners met with applause for the actors and boos for the playwright causing Wilde to announce from behind a curtain "Ladies and gentlemen I regret to inform you that Mr Oscar Wilde is not in the house" Ellmann p. 381. Wilde's opulent production used "the market forces of luxury dressmaking to comment upon the worlds of his Haymarket patrons. Audiences in the stalls and boxes continued to be both flattered and vexed by the antics of their on-stage doubles while viewers in the upper galleries enjoyed the additional spectacle of fashionable Society catching its likeness in Wilde's cunningly set mirrors" Kaplan p. 252. The play premiered at Haymarket Theatre on 19 April 1893 and ran until 16 August for 113 performances. A further 50 large-paper copies were also issued. Quarto. Publisher's 16-page catalogue dated March 1894 bound at the rear. Original pink cloth spine lettered in gilt stylised flower and leaf motifs by Charles Shannon in gilt to spine and covers edges untrimmed. Cloth lightly marked and bumped small spots of wear to extremities faint vertical crease to rear cover contents generally toned some browning to pp. 42-3. A very good copy. Mason 364. Richard Ellmann Oscar Wilde 1988; Joel Kaplan "Wilde on the Stage" The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde ed. by Peter Raby 1997. hardcover
1878151231878. the fine Bradley Martin copy Recited in The Theatre Oxford June 26 1878. Oxford: Thos. Shrimpton and Son 1878. Original grey printed wrappers.<br/> <br/> First Edition of Oscar Wilde's first book the Newdigate Prize-winning poem that he wrote while a student at Magdalen College. To quote from Pearson: He Wilde left Oxford in a blaze of glory. The subject for the Newdigate Prize Poem that year was Ravenna and it so happened that he had visited the place on his way to Greece the year before noting it as a theme for poetic treatment. He could therefore put in bits of local colour which the other competitors had to glean from books. He won the prize as John Ruskin and Matthew Arnold had done before him and declaimed the poem in the Sheldonian Theatre on June 26 1878. When the Professor of Poetry J.C. Shairp whose duty it was to suggest textual improvements to the winner of the Newdigate advised certain alterations Wilde listened with due courtesy took careful notes of every suggestion but went away and printed the poem exactly as he had written it. In this copy the slip "PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN" is affixed to the title verso. This is a remarkably fine copy of this very delicate piece light browning as usual around the edges of the wrappers but no wear. Though not really as scarce an item as one might expect for a first effort this is THE copy for condition and for provenance -- see below. Mason pp 241-249. Housed in a morocco-backed slipcase with inner chemise. Provenance: bookplate of H. Bradley Martin on the case's chemise. To this day the eight-part Bradley Martin sale of 1989-1990 remains the sale of a generation especially for the remarkable condition of his collection for this item see lot #3320. unknown
1898003329London: Murdoch & Co. 1898. First Edition. . Wraps. Near Fine. Original printed wrappers soft cover. 16 pages. First edition in booklet form of Wilde's letter about the Warden Martin case- Martin had been dismissed as warden at Reading Prison for having shown kindness and giving food to a hungry child prisoner. Provenance: includes a typed 1932 sales receipt from Richard S. Wormser Rare Books New York. Also includes a typed SIGNED letter from Rupert Hart-Davis to the previous owner requesting original Wilde letters Hart-Davis was the editor of the First Collected Edition of the Letters of Oscar Wilde along with a reply to Hart-Davis' request. An exceptional copy of a fragile and scarce item with an interesting provenance. MASON/MILLARD 26. Size: 12mo <br/> <br/> Murdoch & Co. paperback
1899biblio3<p>This printing of Oscar Wilde's <em>Ballad of Reading Gaol </em>was published on 23 June 1899 under the pseudonym C.3.3. his prison cell number. <em>Mustard boards with white cloth spine. Condition: In very good condition. </em><em>Light soiling to original publisher's two-tone mustard and white cloth boards and spine. Seventh </em>printing of Leonard Smithers 1899 Edition 8°. 31 pages. It was the first to reveal the author's identity putting the name Oscar Wilde in square brackets under his cell number on the title page. Mason Stuart 1914; new ed. 1972 <em>Bibliography of Oscar Wilde</em>. Rota pub; Haskell House pgs. 408–423.</p> Leonard Smithers hardcover
1894164122London: John Lane at the Sign of the Bodley Head 1894. Epigrammatic brilliance and shrewd social observation First edition one of 500 trade copies. The opening show of this satirical play on English manners was greeted with applause for the actors and boos for the playwright causing Wilde to announce from behind a curtain "Ladies and gentlemen I regret to inform you that Mr Oscar Wilde is not in the house" Ellmann p. 381. Wilde's opulent production used "the market forces of luxury dressmaking to comment upon the worlds of his Haymarket patrons. Audiences in the stalls and boxes continued to be both flattered and vexed by the antics of their on-stage doubles while viewers in the upper galleries enjoyed the additional spectacle of fashionable Society catching its likeness in Wilde's cunningly set mirrors" Kaplan p. 252. The play premiered at Haymarket Theatre on 19 April 1893 and ran until 16 August for 113 performances. An additional 50 large-paper copies were also issued. Small quarto. Publisher's advertisement bookplate on front pastedown and their 16-page catalogue dated March 1894 at end all as called for. Original pink linen with gilt floral decorations by Charles Shannon spine lettered in gilt top edge trimmed others uncut. Welsh-language bookplate of John Evans on front free endpaper. Spine and edges faded light wear to spine ends and corners splits to inner hinges mild toning and spots to contents. A very good copy. Mason 364. Richard Ellmann Oscar Wilde 1988; Joel Kaplan "Wilde on the Stage" The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde ed. by Peter Raby 1997. unknown
1898190120London: Murdoch & Co 1898. An impassioned defence First separate edition first published as a letter in the Daily Chronicle on 28 May 1897 just over a week after Wilde was released from prison. This is Wilde's defence of the warder of Reading Gaol who was dismissed from his job after giving biscuits to a hungry child. This copy belonged to A. J. A. Symons 1900-1941 with his bookplate in the chemise. Symons was friends with Lord Alfred Douglas and was writing a biography of Wilde at the time of his death. He was the founder of both the First Edition Club and the Book Collector's Quarterly. Octavo pp. 16. Original brown wrappers front cover lettered in black. Housed in custom gold patterned chemise. A few creases and marks to wrappers nick to front wrapper light foxing to first and last pages. A very good copy of this fragile work. Millard 26. unknown
1893186770London: Elkin Mathews and John Lane 1893. Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it First edition one of 500 trade copies of Wilde's first comedy play produced at the St James's Theatre on 20 February 1892. An instant success it is considered "revolutionary in its mingling of the vocabulary of comedy the potential of tragedy and the insistence on realism" ODNB. Cigarette in hand Wilde made his legendary curtain call on the opening night: "Your appreciation has been most intelligent. I congratulate you on the great success of your performance which persuades me that you think almost as highly of the play as I do myself." An additional 50 large-paper copies were also issued. Small quarto. With 16 pp. publisher's catalogue dated September 1893 at end. Original pink cloth spine lettered in gilt stylized flower and leaf motifs by Charles Shannon in gilt to spine and covers edges untrimmed. Partially removed catalogue note and previous ownership inscription to front endpapers. Extremities bumped faint marks to front cover a few neat pencil marks to contents. A very good copy. Mason 357. hardcover
1878182528Oxford: Thos. Shrimpton and Son 1878. Wilde debuts First edition of Wilde's first independent publication a poetic evocation of the historic Italian city composed while a student at Oxford and awarded the university's prestigious Newdigate Prize; "its laments for the sufferings of Dante and Byron proclaimed admiration and anticipation" ODNB. The inspiration for the poem came on a "vacation ramble" to Italy in 1877. Wilde recited the poem at the Sheldonian Theatre on 26 June where according to the review published the next day in the Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduate's Journal he was "listened to with rapt attention and frequently applauded" Ellman p. 94. Octavo pp. 16. Original grey-green printed wrappers lettered in black. Housed in custom green cloth box. Wrappers partially detached but holding edges of wrappers lightly toned with small chips internally fresh. A very good copy of a fragile publication. Mason 301. Richard Ellmann Oscar Wilde 1987. hardcover
1878149908Oxford: Thos. Shrimpton and Son 1878. Attractively bound copy of Wilde's first independent publication First edition of Wilde's first independent publication an attractively bound copy preserving the original wrappers and with the bookplate to the front pastedown of the eccentric sportsman and artist William Eden 1849-1915 father of future Prime Minister Anthony Eden and who like Wilde had a dispute with the artist James McNeill Whistler. The inspiration for Wilde's prize-winning poem came on a "vacation ramble" to Italy in 1877 with the precentor and junior dean of Trinity College Dublin William Mahaffy. According to the review published the next day in The Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduate's Journal Wilde's recitation of it at Oxford was "listened to with rapt attention and frequently applauded" Ellman p. 94. Eden excelled at a range of sports from boxing and horse riding to shooting "the epitome of the sporting squire" ODNB a member of several clubs and well known in London society. So too was he a keen amateur artist and aesthete building a fine collection of paintings and was a member of the aristocratic group The Souls. The contrast between the sportsman and the aesthete has been noted: "There was little that was harmonious in his nature and the aesthetic side warred with and exacerbated rather than complemented his athleticism making him a bored sportsman and a militant aesthete. As he grew older the world's failure to correspond to his ideals drove him to furious rages and the debased taste of humanity confirmed his atheism - for how could a God have made such a botch of things" ibid. His dispute with Whistler was occasioned when Eden commissioned a portrait of his wife which Whistler executed but then kept the cheque without handing over the painting leading to a legal case which resulted in Whistler's book The Baronet and the Butterfly 1899. Wilde too had a lengthy rivalry with Whistler out of the courts but with very public sparring. Octavo 16 pp. 176 x 119 mm. Early 20th-century pink straight-grain morocco for Hatchards of Piccadilly spine lettered in gilt pink cloth sides marbled endpapers top edge gilt pink silk page marker; bulked with 20 binder's blanks. With the original green printed wrappers bound in. Spine lightly sunned very light rubbing at extremities short split at foot of front wrapper; an excellent copy. Richard Ellmann Oscar Wilde 1987; Mason 301. hardcover
1889042502London: David Nutt 1889. 2nd Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/No Dust Jacket. small quarto. Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood. prior owner inscriptions to flyleaf binding grubby wear to head of spine very slight toning to end papers. David Nutt hardcover
1882140655Philadelphia: J. M. Stoddart & Co 1882. First edition of Rodd's first book of verse which was published with the assistance of Oscar Wilde. 12mo original publisher's vellum with gilt inner dentelles silk watered endleaves top edge gilt with others untrimmed illustrated. In near fine condition. Neat ownership inscription. Rare. J. M. Stoddart & Co hardcover
18917941London: James R. Osgood 1891. First edition. Very Good . One of 1000 copies. A Very Good copy fresh and clean throughout. Publisher's pictorial tan cloth stamped in gilt. Cloth a bit faded and foxed. Gilt very bright and attractive. Dent to edge of lower board at bottom corner. Modern bookplate D. Chisholm Simpson and ink ownership stamp Yew Tree Cottage to upper endpapers. A some toning to upper free endpaper otherwise very fresh and clean internally. Complete with the four plates illustrated by Charles Shannon which have faded but are somewhat clearer than is usually seen.<br /> <br /> A collection of fairytales from the famed writer wit and aesthete A House of Pomegranates compiles four stories of mermaids hunchbacks kings and princesses. This was actually Wilde's second collection of fairy tales - he had been writing such stories for years - after The Happy Prince and Other Tales published in 1888. A House of Pomegranates was met with some controversy with many reviewers finding the stories too complex and morally ambiguous for children. Wilde clearly had more wide-ranging ambitions than the standard children's tale however and found it absurd that "the extremely limited vocabulary at the disposal of the British child is the standard by which the prose of an artist is to be judged.in building this House of Pomegranates I had about as much intention of pleasing the British child as I had of pleasing the British public." Very Good . James R. Osgood unknown
1893140949205London: Elkin Mathews and John Lane 1893. First Edition. Very Good. First edition first printing. xiv 132 14 2 pp. with 14 advertising pages at rear. Bound in publisher's mauve cloth stamped in gilt. Very Good with soiling and darkening to cloth and bumping to corners and spine ends. Contents lightly toned and thumbed with foxing to endpapers and first and last few pages. One of the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde's best-known plays a comedy in four acts. Elkin Mathews and John Lane unknown