Oscar's Books

A fresh and delightful examination of the character of Oscar Wilde by looking at him through the prism of the books he read.

In an entirely new kind of biography, Oscar’s Books explores the personality of Oscar Wilde through his reading. For Wilde, as for many people, reading could be as powerful and transformative an experience as falling in love. He referred to the volumes that radically altered his vision of the world as his “golden books.” He gave books as gifts, often as part of his seduction campaigns of young men, and sometimes he literally ate books, tearing off corners of paper and chewing them as he read. Wilde’s beloved book collection was sold at the time of his trials to pay creditors and legal costs.

Thomas Wright, in the course of his intensive research, has hunted down many of the missing volumes, which contain revealing markings and personal annotations never previously examined.