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Illustrated portrait of Oscar Wilde

Author bibliography

Oscar Wilde Books

Last reviewed Oscar Wilde’s profile

The short answer

We hold 18 Oscar Wilde titles on our shelves: 4 story collections, 7 plays and screenplays, 1 memoir or travel book, 3 volumes of nonfiction and letters, and 3 books of poems. They are listed below by form, earliest first, and every one links to its own page.

Start with The Importance of Being Earnest if you want comedy, The Picture of Dorian Gray if you want a novel, or The Happy Prince and Other Tales if you want short fiction. Then read the other society plays, followed by Intentions for Wilde's ideas about art. Save De Profundis and The Ballad of Reading Gaol until you know the public writer whose life prison interrupted.

Reviewed against the Bibliothèque nationale de France authority and catalogue, the British Library's Dorian Gray record, University College Oxford's Salomé history, and the Poetry Foundation biography. The shelves cover eighteen major standalone works; journalism, lectures, letters, and modern editorial collections are described as further reading rather than counted as books Wilde published.

Illustration of Oscar Wilde writing at a late nineteenth-century Paris hotel desk with manuscript pages, theatre programs, books, lilies, and a dark green coat, while the street outside appears in rainy evening light.

Oscar Wilde short story collections

Poems in Prose

Oscar Wilde · 1894 · Short stories

Six very short parables that use biblical language to unsettle simple lessons about miracles, suffering, knowledge, and desire.

4.2
Illustration of Oscar Wilde reading beside a table of fairy-tale objects including a small prince statue, a swallow, a pomegranate, a rose, and a miniature castle.

Plays and screenplays

Work written to be performed. A screenplay published as a book belongs here rather than with the nonfiction, whatever the shelf it was sold on.

The Duchess of Padua

Oscar Wilde · 1883 · Drama

An early five-act tragedy in which a young man seeking revenge in Renaissance Italy falls in love with the wife of the ruler he plans to kill.

4.2

Lady Windermere's Fan

Oscar Wilde · 1893 · Drama

A society comedy in which a young wife suspects her husband, an excluded woman returns, and a fan becomes evidence that tells the wrong story.

4.6

Salome

Oscar Wilde · 1893 · Drama

Oscar Wilde's one-act tragedy, written in French, in which Salome demands the head of the prophet Jokanaan after he rejects her.

4.6

An Ideal Husband

Oscar Wilde · 1899 · Drama

A political comedy about blackmail, a fortune built on a secret, and the damage caused by demanding moral perfection from another person.

4.6
Illustration of Oscar Wilde standing at the edge of a theatre stage while actors rehearse a drawing-room comedy among chairs, a fan, a handbag, and painted doors.

Diaries, memoir, and autofiction

Books written from the author's own life, wherever they were shelved at publication.

De Profundis

Oscar Wilde · 1905 · Memoir & autofiction

Oscar Wilde's long prison letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, combining accusation, self-criticism, memory, suffering, art, and a new interpretation of Christ.

4.6

Nonfiction, essays, and letters

Criticism, lectures, and journalism published in the author's lifetime, and the volumes editors assembled afterward.

Intentions

Oscar Wilde · 1891 · Essays & criticism

Four essays and dialogues in which Oscar Wilde argues that criticism is creative, art need not copy life, and a work should not be reduced to a moral lesson.

4.6

Poetry

Poems

Oscar Wilde · 1881 · Poetry

Oscar Wilde's first commercial book, a decorated collection shaped by classical myth, Catholic imagery, travel, love, and the Aesthetic movement.

4.2

The Sphinx

Oscar Wilde · 1894 · Poetry

A long, highly decorated poem in which a speaker questions a sphinx about imagined lovers, gods, monsters, and ancient history.

4.2
Illustration of an older Oscar Wilde writing at a plain prison table beneath a high barred window, with numbered paper, a closed door, and a narrow patch of sky.

Oscar Wilde books in order

Two orders: the one we would hand a new reader, and the order the books were published. Mark what you have read, what you are reading, and what you want to read.

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Common questions

What is the best Oscar Wilde book to read first?

The Importance of Being Earnest is the best general starting point because it is short, funny, and shows how Oscar Wilde uses dialogue to expose arbitrary social rules. Choose The Picture of Dorian Gray if you prefer a novel.

How many novels did Oscar Wilde write?

Oscar Wilde wrote one novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray. It appeared first as a shorter magazine story in 1890 and then as a revised, expanded book in 1891.

What order should I read Oscar Wilde's plays in?

Begin with The Importance of Being Earnest, then read Lady Windermere's Fan, An Ideal Husband, and A Woman of No Importance. Read Salome afterward as a separate tragedy, and save the early Vera and The Duchess of Padua for last.

Did Oscar Wilde write children's books?

Oscar Wilde wrote two fairy-tale collections read by children and adults: The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pomegranates. The stories use fantasy to address poverty, selfishness, love, labor, and cruelty.

Which Oscar Wilde works were written after prison?

After leaving prison in 1897, Oscar Wilde wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He wrote the long letter later called De Profundis inside Reading Gaol; an edited version was published after his death in 1905.

Why do editions of Dorian Gray and De Profundis differ?

The Picture of Dorian Gray exists in a shorter 1890 magazine text and a revised 1891 book. De Profundis first appeared in a heavily edited 1905 version; the complete prison letter was first published in 1962. A good edition states which text it uses.

Read more about Oscar Wilde: the full biography covers the life, Paris places, and people connected to the work.

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