(I have added translations of foreign titles in square brackets.)
a)
Requested in June 1895
St Augustine: Confessions
De civitate dei [The City of God]
Pascal: Pensées [Thoughts]
Provincial Letters
W. Pater: Studies in the History of the Renaissance
T. Mommsen: The History of Rome (5 vols)
Cardinal Newman: The Grammar of Ascent
Apologia Pro Vita Sua [Defence of his life]
Two Essays on Miracles
The Idea of a University
(Source: Complete Letters, p. 653, n. 2)
b)
Requested in July 1896
This list is written in Wilde’s hand and contains his annotations. The titles in square brackets were deleted by Major Nelson.
A Greek Testament
Milman’s History of the Jews & [Latin Christianity]
[Stanley’s Jewish Church]
Farrar’s St Paul
Tennyson’s Poems (complete in one volume)
Percy’s Reliques (the collection of old ballads)
Christopher Marlowe’s Works
[Buckle’s History of Civilisation]
Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus and Life of Frederick the Great
[Froude’s Short Studies on Great Subjects]
A prose translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy
Keats’s Poems
Chaucer’s Poems
Spenser’s Poems
[Letters of R. Louis Stevenson, edited by Sidney Colvin]
[Walter Pater’s posthumous volume of essays]
Renan’s Vie de Jésus and Les Apôtres [The Life of Jesus and The Apostles] (The chaplain sees no objection to these if they are in the original French)
[Taylor’s Primitive Culture]
Ranke’s History of the Popes
Critical and Historical Essays by Cardinal Newman
[En Route by J-K. Huysmans. Translation of the French by C. Kegan Paul. I would of course prefer it in the French if it would be allowed. If not I would like to read it in the translation. It is a book on modern Christianity.]
[Lecky’s History of Rationalism]
Emerson’s Essays (If possible in one volume)
Cheap edition of Dickens’s Works. The Library here contains no example of any of Thackeray’s or Dickens’s novels. I feel sure that a complete set of their works would be as great a boon to many amongst the other prisoners as it certainly would be to myself.
(Source: Complete Letters, p. 660, n. 1)
c)
Requested in December 1896
Gaston de Latour by Walter Pater, MA (Macmillan)
Milman’s History of Latin Christianity
Wordsworth’s Complete Works in one volume with preface by John Morley (Macmillan. 7/6)
Matthew Arnold’s Poems. One volume complete. (Macmillan. 7/6)
Dante and Other Essays by Dean Church (Macmillan. 5/-)
Percy’s Reliques
Hallam’s Middle Ages (History of)
Dryden’s Poems (I vol. Macmillan. 3/6)
Burns’s Poems ditto
Morte D’Arthur ditto
Froissart’s Chronicles ditto
Buckle’s History of Civilisation
Marlowe’s Plays
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (edited by A. Pollard 2 vols 10/-) Macmillan
Introduction to Dante by John Addington Symonds
Companion to Dante by A. J. Butler
Miscellaneous Essays by Walter Pater
An English translation of Goethe’s Faust
EDUCATIONAL
Ollendorff’s German Method 5/6
Key to the same. 3/6
Wilhelm Tell. Hamiltonian System. 5/-
German–English Dictionary
Faust by Goethe (in the original)
Key to Mariotti’s Italian Grammar. I/-
Guide to the Italian Language by A. Biaggi. 5/-
Biaggi’s Prosatori Italiani [Italian Prose Writers] 5/-
Italian–English Dictionary
(Source: Complete Letters, p. 673, n. 3)
d)
Requested in March 1897
A French Bible
German Grammar
German Conversation Book
French–Italian Conversation Book
Dante: Vita Nuova [The New Life]
Dante: Vita Nuova. English Translation
Goldoni: Commedie [Comic Plays]
Augustin Filon: L’Art dramatique en Angleterre (Le Théâtre Anglais, 1896) [English Dramatic Art]
Journal des Goncourt. Latest volume
Pressensé: Vie du Cardinal Manning (1896) [Life of Cardinal Manning]
Huysmans: En Route (1895)* [On the Road]
Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1895)
Robert Louis Stevenson: Valima Letters (1895)
George Meredith: Essay on Comedy (1897)
Ditto: Amazing Marriage (1895)
Thomas Hardy: The Well-Beloved (1897)
Harold Frederic: Illumination (1896)
Nineteenth Century for 1896
Robert Louis Stevenson: Treasure Island
* This is the religious novel of which Mr Gladstone wrote in terms of such high commendation. [The request for Treasure Island and the note on En Route were written by Wilde. The rest of the list was compiled by More Adey.]
(Source: Complete Letters, p. 682, n. 2)
e)
Books requested in April 1897
This list was compiled by Wilde at the end of a letter he wrote to Robbie Ross on 6 April 1897.
FRENCH BOOKS
Flaubert: Tentation [The Temptation of St Anthony]
Trois Contes [Three Tales]
Salammbô
Mérimée: Novels
Anatole France: Thaïs and his latest works
Pierre Louÿs: Novel [Aphrodite, 1896]
La Jeunesse: Novel [L’imitation de Notre-Maître Napoléon, 1897] [The Imitation of Our Master Napoleon]
Maeterlinck: Complete [i.e. Complete Works]
Baudelaire: Fleurs du Mal
Strindberg: Last plays
Ibsen: Translation (Eyolf. Borkman) [i.e. Little Eyolf. John Gabriel Borkman]
Montaigne
Gautier: Émaux et Camées
French Bible (University Press)
French–English Dictionary
Some mystical books
Murray: Greek Literature [Gilbert Murray, History of Ancient Greek Literature]
Quarterly Review for April
Hogarth on Alexander the Great (Murray) [D. G. Hogarth, Philip and Alexander of Macedon]
Quo Vadis? (Dent, translation of novel by Sienkiewicz)
ENGLISH
Epic and Romance[W.P. Ker]
St William of Norwich [The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich]
Ancient Ideals[H.O. Taylor]
Wagner’s Letters to Roeckel (Arrowsmith)
[J.A.] Symonds: Italian By-Ways
Hettinger on Dante. Translated by Father Bowden
Mrs Mark Pattison: Renaissance [of Art] in France
Dom Gasquet: Historical Essays
Yeats: The Secret Rose
A.E.W. Mason The Philanderers (Macmillan). Also his previous novel [The Courtship of Morrice Buckler, 1896]
A Bible.
Flinders Petrie on Egypt [Egyptian Decorative Art, 1895]. Any good book on Ancient Egypt.
Translation of Hafiz, and of Oriental love-poetry.
Morrison: article in Nineteenth Century on Prisons and Sir Edmund Du Cane’s reply. Morrison’s Criminology Series.
Spanish–French Conversation Book.
Calderon: Mágico Prodigioso (translated). [The Wonder-Working Magician]
Devoción de la Cruz. [The Devotion of the Cross]
Spanish Grammar.
Guide-Book to Morbihan, Finisterre district. Quimper, Vannes.
Guide-Book to Pyrenees.
Salomé.
(Source: Complete Letters, pp. 791–3)