On 13 February 1908, Methuen and Co in London published the first six volumes of what came to be known as the 'First Collected Edition' of the works of Oscar Wilde (which was not truly the first one). The first six volumes were:
The Duchess of Padua. A PlaySalomé. A Florentine tragedy. Vera
Lady Windermere’s Fan. A Play About a Good Woman
A Woman Of No Importance. A Play
An Ideal Husband. A play
The Importance Of Being Earnest. A Trivial Comedy for Serious People
Of each volume one thousand copies were published on handmade paper (bound in buckram) and eighty copies on deluxe paper called 'Japanese vellum' (bound in vellum). Decorated with gilt designs by Charles Ricketts, the bindings were issued in protective grey-green dust-jackets, printed in green (some copies have brown paper wrappers, not noted by Wilde's bibliographer Stuart Mason [C.S. Millard]).
Occasionally, sets of the standard or deluxe edition appear in their original jackets, but they are quite rare, especially in good condition. Their colour also makes them difficult to reproduce: I’ve seen both grey and blue copies, but in reality they are all actually a dark grey-green.
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| Dust-jacket for Oscar Wilde, Intentions and The Soul of Man (1908) |
Five more volumes were published a month later, including Intentions and The Soul of Man, followed by Charles Carrington's edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray (April) and Methuen's last volumes Reviews and Miscellanies (both October 1908).
Ricketts's designs were first used three years earlier for the deluxe editions of Oscar Wilde's De Profundis.
