Complete Works Oscar Wilde – serie

This is the first collection of plays in the Complete Works of Oscar Wilde series edited by Ian Small. It contains full-dress critical editions, at the high editorial standard of the familiar Oxford English Texts series, encompassing all surviving manuscript material and all other relevant documents, of three of Wilde's plays: The Duchess of Padua, the original French Salomé, and the first English translation, by Lord Alfred Douglas. The edition contains comprehensive introductions and editorial introductions, as well as extensive annotations. The Duchess of Padua is one of two early plays by Wilde (the other being Vera; or, The Nihilists) that signify his youthful interest in making his mark on the contemporary theatre. They are imperfect works, but they show the real talent and definite promise that would be fulfilled, in the early 1890s, first with Lady Windermere's Fan (completed 1891, produced 1892) and then, almost simultaneously, with the next play in this volume, Wilde's French Salomé, written also in 1891, completed in 1892, but not published until 1893: his only work written in French. Douglas's translation, which left the author of the French work disappointed by its 'schoolboy' quality, is also included here since it was issued over Wilde's name (and dedicated to Douglas, 'the translator of my play') and is indisputably part of Wilde's oeuvre.

This volume of Poems and Poems in Prose inaugurates the Oxford English Texts Complete Works of Oscar Wilde , which will for the first time provide students of Wilde with scholarly and textually accurate texts of his complete oeuvre. In it, Bobby Fong and Karl Beckson provide reliable texts of all Wilde's poems and poems in prose, including 21 never published in his lifetime, together with information on the locations of extant manuscripts; bibliogaphical details of each poem's publishing history; commentaries that identify and clarify contexts and allusions to figures and events; and emendations and variant readings, in manuscripts and printed editions, which illuminate Wilde's craftsmanship in revising. The variety of poetic forms in Wilde's 199 poems–from his earliest known verse, written while a student at Oxford, to his final masterpiece, The Ballad of Reading Gaol–reveals a versatility and accomplishment that previously has often been overlooked. Many of the poems, most of which were written before Wilde achieved fame, express themes developed in his later work in prose and drama, pointing to a continuity now perceived by critics. This new edition includes an informative introduction by Ian Small, one of the general editors of the Complete Works, which provides the historical context for an understanding of Wilde's career, information about the conditions surrounding the publication of his poetry, and insight into the current resurgence of scholarly interest in the man and his writing. Publication of the Complete Works will confirm Wilde's centrality in the development of early Modernism towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Volume IV of the Oxford English Texts Complete Works of Oscar Wilde is the first variorum edition of Wilde's major critical writing; it includes the critical essays which were re-published in book-form in his life-time - that is, those anthologised in Intentions and The Soul of Man - as well as his graduate essay usually known by the title The Rise of Historical Criticism, but which this volume titles Historical Criticism. The Introduction gives a detailed account of the composition of each of the essays: it gives a new explanation for the relationship between the 'The Decay of Lying' and 'Pen, Pencil, and Poison' (arguing that they are best understood as companion pieces); it provides the first concrete demonstration that Wilde did, on occasions, knowingly 'copy' his own work; and it reveals that substantial cuts were made to some of Wilde's essays (without his full consent) by the periodical editors with whom he worked. The edition also provides, for the first time, a full collation of the textual variants between the published versions of Wilde's essays (that is, both book and periodical), and all extant manuscripts; in addition it establishes a new, authoritative text for Historical Criticism, based on an examination of the original manuscript, which differs significantly from that printed by Robert Ross in his 1908 Collected Edition (and subsequently reprinted in the Collins Complete Works). The annotation to the edition reveals the full extent of Wilde's 'borrowings' both from his own work, and from other writers; it also reveals that much of Historical Criticism is in fact paraphrasing or translating well-known classical texts, and that the some of denseness of the argument is due to ellipses in Wilde's text that were disguised by earlier editors.

This volume presents for the first time the complete textual history of one of the most famous love letters ever written. Addressed to Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, and composed in Reading Gaol, it was later given the title 'De Profundis' by Wilde's friend and literary executor, Robert Ross. It was Ross's severely abridged and sanitized version, published in 1905 and again 1908, which inaugurated the tradition of seeing De Profundis as the apologia pro sua vita of a broken man. This edition takes account of this complex heritage by arguing that Wilde's prison document may be seen not just as the basis of a letter (a typed copy of which may have been sent to Douglas) but also as an unfinished literary work which he intended for public consumption at some future date. Such a case is made by placing in the public domain, often for the first time, a number of different works, derived from different texts, each of which bears witness to Wilde's multiple intentions for his prison document. These texts comprise: the manuscript held in the British Library; the version of Wilde's letter published by his son, Vyvyan Holland, from a typescript bequeathed to him by Robert Ross; hitherto unpublished witnesses to that typescript; and Ross's editions, collated with each other. The commentary to this edition - again for the first time - sets Wilde's story of his own life in 'De Profundis' against the testimony of other players in his drama, including, most importantly, that of Douglas. In so doing it exposes the partial nature of Wilde's narrative, as well as the personal obsessions which animated it. The commentary also demonstrates a hitherto unnoticed element of Wilde's work, the extent and nature of its richly layered intertextuality and its similarity, in its compositional practices, to many of his earlier works.

This volume of the Complete Works of Oscar Wilde is the second volume of Wilde's journalism. Throughout the 1880s Oscar Wilde devoted the greater part of his creative energies to working as a professional journalist and he was prepared to write on a remarkable range of topics - from cookery books to lyric poetry, from classical translations to three-volume novels, from dress reform to transatlantic visitors. He also reviewed theatrical productions and art exhibitions of many kinds. Between 1887 and 1889 he edited the pioneering Woman's World magazine to which he contributed lengthy columns discussing literary and other matters of interest to an educated female readership. This is the first comprehensive edition of Wilde's journalism since 1908. It includes all of his known contributions, both signed and anonymous, to periodicals and newspapers. Of the more than 150 items - reviews, articles, editorials - a significant number have been identified for the first time, while the authenticity of others previously thought to be by Wilde is questioned. An extensive commentary offers the sources for Wilde's extraordinary cultural knowledge and provides cross-references to his oeuvre as whole. In the case of the book reviews, the commentary indicates relevant pages and passages in the works under discussion. Uniquely witty, intellectually acute, and socially aware Wilde's journalism not only displays the extensive reading and stylistic experimentation that prepared the way for his major works of the 1890s, it provides an essential record of the vibrant and rapidly changing journalistic culture in which he played a major part. This second volume of journalism presents all of Wilde's journalistic writings published between November 1887 and April 1895. It also contains a section of 'Dubia', which contains items where a degree of uncertainty regarding Wilde's authorship remains.

This volume of the Complete Works of Oscar Wilde is the first volume of Wilde's journalism. Throughout the 1880s Oscar Wilde devoted the greater part of his creative energies to working as a professional journalist and he was prepared to write on a remarkable range of topics - from cookery books to lyric poetry, from classical translations to three-volume novels, from dress reform to transatlantic visitors. He also reviewed theatrical productions and art exhibitions of many kinds. Between 1887 and 1889 he edited the pioneering Woman's World magazine to which he contributed lengthy columns discussing literary and other matters of interest to an educated female readership.This is the first comprehensive edition of Wilde's journalism since 1908. It includes all of his known contributions, both signed and anonymous, to periodicals and newspapers. Of the more than 150 items - reviews, articles, editorials - a significant number have been identified for the first time, while the authenticity of others previously thought to be by Wilde is questioned. An extensive commentary offers the sources for Wilde's extraordinary cultural knowledge and provides cross-references to his oeuvre as whole. In the case of the book reviews, the commentary indicates relevant pages and passages in the works under discussion. Uniquely witty, intellectually acute, and socially aware Wilde's journalism not only displays the extensive reading and stylistic experimentation that prepared the way for his major works of the 1890s, it provides an essential record of the vibrant and rapidly changing journalistic culture in which he played a major part.