Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Impressions of America | TBD | Oscar Wilde | Buy |
| 2 | The Decay of Lying | TBD | Oscar Wilde | Buy |
| 3 | Oscariana | TBD | Oscar Wilde | Buy |
| 4 | De Profundis | TBD | Oscar Wilde | Buy |
| 5 | Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast | 1946 | Oscar Wilde | Buy |
| 6 | The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde | 1962 | Oscar Wilde | Buy |
| 7 | Sixteen Letters from Oscar Wilde | 1974 | Oscar Wilde | Buy |
| 8 | Nothing… Except My Genius | 1997 | Oscar Wilde | Buy |
| 9 | Oscar Wilde : A Life in Letters | 2003 | Oscar Wilde | Buy |
Oscar Wilde’s non-fiction reveals the mind behind the wit. The Decay of Lying (1891) is a dialogue arguing that art shapes life rather than the other way around, and it remains one of the sharpest defenses of aestheticism ever written. De Profundis, his prison letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, is the opposite in tone: raw, wounded, and unflinching about his own failures and Douglas’s cruelty.
His letters, collected in various editions from 1962 onward, show Wilde at his most unguarded. The Oscar Wilde: A Life in Letters (2003) edition is a good overview of his correspondence from Oxford dandy to Parisian exile. Oscariana gathers his epigrams and quotable lines, which is fitting for a man whose conversation was as celebrated as his published work.