Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Wilde, Oscar. A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE. , 1894.
Price: US$650.00 + shipping
Description: London: John Lane at the Sign of the Bodley Head, 1894. 16 pp ads dated March 1894. Original violet cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition of Wilde's satirical play about upper-class social scandal, which consisted of 500 copies (so stated -- half as many copies as the following year's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST). Wilde wrote this play for production by Herbert Beerbohm Tree (Max's elder brother), of the Theatre Royal in Haymarket, where it opened on 19 April 1893. The sophisticated Lord Illingworth has appointed young Gerald Arbuthnot to be his Secretary, but Gerald's mother, "a woman of no importance," guards a long-concealed secret that prompts her to advise her son to decline the appointment -- but is reluctant to say why. Mason quotes an April 1893 theatrical review: ".the scene between Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Arbuthnot at the end of the second act of this play [pp 76-82] is the most virile and intelligent -- yes, I mean it, the most intelligent -- piece of dramatic writing of our day." We won't divulge the secret here, but suffice it to say that by the end of the play, Lord Illingworth becomes a man of no importance. (During the rehearsal stage, Tree and then Wilde himself were approached by blackmailers who had acquired several "beautiful" letters written by Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas; Wilde ultimately resolved the problem to Tree's satisfaction, but copies of the letters also fell into the hands of Lord Queensberry (Alfred's father), with far greater consequences.) The binding design, on both covers and on the spine, is by Charles Shannon. This is a very good copy -- some cover soil, light wear at the extremities, endpapers slightly cracked -- three problems that unfortunately are typical for this artfully-designed book; there is also light damage to the title leaf at the gutter. This copy bears the publisher's bookplate ("This book is now published by John Lane."), which we have seen before with this book. Mason 364.
Seller: Sumner & Stillman [ABAA], Yarmouth, ME, U.S.A.
WILDE, OSCAR. A Woman of No Importance. John Lane, London, 1894.
Price: US$747.98 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: 8vo, 154pp., [2], 14p. ads, [2]. Faded purple cloth with gilt lettering and decorations by Charles Shannon. Some bubbling to cloth, boards worn at the tips and at head and foot of spine, some scuffing to rear board, spine darkened. Edges of text age-toned, hinges split and weak but boards are still firmly attached. Adverts dated 1894. Mason, 364. Half of the book with unopened pages. 1 of 500 copies printed.
Seller: Karol Krysik Books ABAC/ILAB, IOBA, PBFA, Toronto, ON, Canada
Price: US$762.11 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: "Of this edition 500 copies have been printed". In faded pink/mauve cloth boards, with gilt decoration front and back and with gilt titles to spine. The covers are quite firm, straight and clean, with more fading around the edges; corners and spine ends a little bumped. The end papers are tanned around the edges and with some marks. Very age-toned cut edges; the fore and tail edges are deckled. Good text block, with tightly bound pages, tanned around the edges, square and without annotatioin, but with name of previous owner on a prelim. Sixteen page 'List of Books in Belles Lettres' to rear. No jacket.
Seller: Clevedon Community Bookshop Co-operative, Clevedon, United Kingdom
Wilde, Oscar. A Woman of No Importance. John Lane, London, 1894.
Price: US$900.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: 1st edition, newly rebound in brown leather with a gilt-stamped red leather title piece and Florentine marbled endpapers. New binding fine; the text pages are about good plus. All are toned brown near the edges. The first blank (of 2 before the title page) bears a gift inscr. in French; that page also chipped at the corners. An owner's name is upside down on the final blank. 154 pp. + 16-p. publisher's catalog.
Seller: Page 1 Books - Special Collection Room, Albuquerque, NM, U.S.A.
Price: US$950.00 + shipping
Description: First edition, one of 500 copies. 154, [1] pp. 1 vols. 4to. Mason 365 Original mauve cloth decorated in gilt. Spine faded, cloth at extremities frayed, corners bumped, some soiling to cloth, front flyelaf and first blank torn at gutter. Good
Seller: James Cummins Bookseller, ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Oscar Wilde. A Woman of No Importance. John Lane, London UK, 1894.
Price: US$1088.73 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde. Limited first edition. John Lane at the sign of The Bodley Head, London 1894. One of 500 copies of the first edition of one of the Irish play writer's scarce plays, A Woman of No Importance. A rebound copy in a very good condition and a lovely find. Rebound in brown buckram cloth with gilt details in the style of the original cloth design. New end papers. The contents are browned with marks on several of the pages. 8vo 154 pp with a catalogue at the rear of the book dated March 1894.
Seller: Rare And Antique Books PBFA, Exeter, DEVON, United Kingdom
Wilde, Oscar. A Woman of No Importance. John Lane, London, 1894.
Price: US$1200.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition, one of 500 copies only printed. Octavo in lavender cloth decorated in gilt and with spine lettered in gilt. Fore edges uncut. 154 pp. plus 16 pp. of adverts for List of Books in Belles Lettres. This copy bears the rather scarce small publisher's bookplate on the front pastedown announcing "This Book Now Published by John Lane at the Bodley Head in Vigo St. London W." Very good. Scattered foxing to the endpapers. Shallow wear to the spine extremities and spine a bit rubbed. Some rippling to the lower portion of the cloth on the front board.
Seller: Old Book Shop of Bordentown (ABAA, ILAB), Bordentown, NJ, U.S.A.
Wilde, Oscar. A Woman Of No Importance. John Lane, London, 1894.
Price: US$1450.00 + shipping
Description: 154 pages. 27.5 x 16 cm. Limited edition, one of 500 with 16 pages of advertisements at end (dated March 1894), Cover gilt design florets by Charles Shannon considerably influenced by his lifetime partner Charles Ricketts, both of whom produced work for the Doves Press. MASON 364. The play premièred on 19 April 1893 at London's Haymarket Theatre, satirizing English upper-class society. Spine dulled, spine extremities creased, binding tight; a reasonably sound copy. Publisher's full mauve cloth stamped in gilt, spine stamped and lettered in gilt. Very good
Seller: Royoung Bookseller, Inc. ABAA, Ardsley, NY, U.S.A.
Oscar Wilde. A Woman of No Importance. John Lane/Bodley Head, London, 1894.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: This first edition of Wilde's play, limited to 500 copies, was published a year before his masterpiece, "The Importance of Being Earnest". Publisher's bookplate front pastedown, hinges starting, fading to spine cloth. Pink cloth with gilt trim and gilt decorations, edges untrimmed.
Seller: Green Mountain Books & Prints, Lyndonville, VT, U.S.A.
Price: US$1601.08 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: FIRST EDITION, First Impression; one of just 500 copies. Square 8vo. (8.4 X 6.3 inches). Pages a bit toned but overall a very good copy bound in recent full tan morocco leather binding. Spine with raised bands, two red morocco labels, gilt. Single gilt ruled border on boards. Top edge gilt. Adverts dated March 1894 at the end. Original publishers decorative pale purple cloth boards and spine, designed by Charles Shannon, bound in at the rear.
Seller: Paul Foster. - ABA & PBFA Member., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$2241.51 + shipping
Description: First edition, one of 500 trade copies. The opening show of this satirical play on English manners was greeted with applause for the actors and boos for the playwright, causing Wilde to announce from behind a curtain, "Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that Mr Oscar Wilde is not in the house" (Ellmann, p. 381). Wilde's opulent production used "the market forces of luxury dressmaking to comment upon the worlds of his Haymarket patrons. Audiences in the stalls and boxes continued to be both flattered and vexed by the antics of their on-stage doubles, while viewers in the upper galleries enjoyed the additional spectacle of fashionable Society catching its likeness in Wilde's cunningly set mirrors" (Kaplan, p. 252). The play premiered at Haymarket Theatre on 19 April 1893 and ran until 16 August for 113 performances. An additional 50 large-paper copies were also issued. Mason 364. Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, 1988; Joel Kaplan, "Wilde on the Stage", The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde, ed. by Peter Raby, 1997. Small quarto. Original pink linen with gilt floral decorations by Charles Shannon, spine lettered in gilt, top edge trimmed, others uncut. Publisher's advertisement bookplate on front pastedown and their 16-page catalogue, dated March 1894, at end, all as called for. Welsh-language bookplate of John Evans on front free endpaper. Spine and edges faded, light wear to spine ends and corners, splits to inner hinges, mild toning and spots to contents. A very good copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Price: US$2241.51 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 13 vols. (April 1894 - April 1897). No adverts to rear of volumes so early issue. Square 8vo. Publisher's original decorative cloth, yellow buckram with black block print designs to front panels, early volumes after illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley when he was editor, spines are a little faded but unduly so, boards still retaining their yellow brightness, and extremities still quite sharp, corners, heads & tails etc., the only exception probably being the first volume which is more worn than the others, a touch more shaken with a small split to head of the spine (easy repair), pages are generally clean and crisp throughout, illustrations with tissue guards present, and a number of leaves uncut, with the same bookseller's label to front paste-down of each volume (D. W. Edwards of Hull) demonstrating the set's originality; a wonderful run of this pioneering periodical of the nineties, with contributions from so many greats of fin-de-siecle writing, including a number of women like George Egerton and Ella D'Arcy. Beardsley edited for the first year until his sacking by John Lane, went to edit the rival Savoy and then vanished from public view in the wake of Oscar Wilde's trial. Turbulent times for decadent young men with artistic aspirations. A delightful set, in good clean shape, heavy together, may cost extra to ship. 272; 360; 278; 285; 317; 335; 319; 406; 256; 344; 342; 344; 316pp.
Seller: B. B. Scott, Fine Books (PBFA), London, UK, United Kingdom
Wilde, Oscar. Salome. Elkin Mathews & Copeland & Day, London & Boston, 1894.
Price: US$2750.00 + shipping
Description: 67 pages. 21.5 x 15.5 cm. Limited edition, one of 500 copies. 16 pages of adverts dated January 1984 published by Elkin Mathews and John Lane at rear. BeardsleymockedWildein his illustrations, depicting him as the 'Woman in the Moon' and as a jester in 'Enter Herodias'. First published in French the previous year withoutBeardsley's illustrations due to censorship problems: the production of the play had its license withheld by the Lord Chamberlain on the grounds of its having introduced biblical characters. LASNER 59. MASON 350. Ten full page black and white plates by Beardsley. Text clean, renewed endpapers, slight rubbing to covers. Rebacked in full dark green calf, front and back covers decorated in gilt. Very good
Seller: Royoung Bookseller, Inc. ABAA, Ardsley, NY, U.S.A.
WILDE, Oscar. A Woman of No Importance. , 1894.
Price: US$3163.73 + shipping
Description: First edition, one of 500 copies. Small 4to., original red-brown cloth designed by Charles Ricketts. London: John Lane, Mason, 364. Very slight fading to spine and part of front cover, a couple of very minor string marks, but a very good copy indeed.
Seller: Maggs Bros. Ltd ABA, ILAB, PBFA, BA, London, United Kingdom
Price: US$3202.16 + shipping
Description: First edition, trade issue, one of 500 copies printed; a further 50 copies were also issued on handmade paper. An attractively bound copy, with the bookplate to the rear pastedown of the eccentric sportsman and artist William Eden (1849-1915), father of future Prime Minister Anthony Eden, and who, like Wilde, had a dispute with the artist James McNeill Whistler. Eden excelled at a range of sports from boxing and horse riding to shooting, "the epitome of the sporting squire" (ODNB), a member of several clubs and well known in London society. So too was he a keen amateur artist and aesthete, building a fine collection of paintings, and was a member of the aristocratic group The Souls. The contrast between the sportsman and the aesthete has been noted: "There was little that was harmonious in his nature, and the aesthetic side warred with and exacerbated, rather than complemented, his athleticism, making him a bored sportsman and a militant aesthete. As he grew older, the world's failure to correspond to his ideals drove him to furious rages and the debased taste of humanity confirmed his atheism - for how could a God have made such a botch of things?" (ibid). His dispute with Whistler was occasioned when Eden commissioned a portrait of his wife, which Whistler executed, but then kept the cheque without handing over the painting, leading to a legal case which resulted in Whistler's book The Baronet and the Butterfly (1899). Wilde too had a lengthy rivalry with Whistler, out of the courts, but with very public sparring. Mason 364. Small quarto (204 x 148 mm). Early 20th-century pink straight-grain morocco for Hatchards of Piccadilly, spine lettered in gilt, pink cloth sides, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, pink silk page marker. Bound without initial blank. A few pencilled lines in margins. Spine lightly sunned, very light rubbing at extremities, slight split in hinge preceding dedication leaf, contents clean; an excellent copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Wilde, Oscar. A Woman of No Importance. John Lane, 1894.
Price: US$3500.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: First Edition, First Printing bound in the ORIGINAL salmon cloth from the publisher. A wonderful copy. The book is in nice condition. The binding is tight, and the boards are crisp with minor wear to the spine and edges. The pages are clean with no writing, marks or bookplates in the book. Overall, a sharp copy of this TRUE FIRST EDITION in collector's condition. We buy Oscar Wilde First Editions.
Seller: Magnum Opus Rare Books, Missoula, MT, U.S.A.
Price: US$3842.59 + shipping
Description: First edition, one of 500 trade copies. The opening show of this satirical play on English manners met with applause for the actors and boos for the playwright, causing Wilde to announce from behind a curtain, "Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that Mr Oscar Wilde is not in the house" (Ellmann, p. 381). Wilde's opulent production used "the market forces of luxury dressmaking to comment upon the worlds of his Haymarket patrons. Audiences in the stalls and boxes continued to be both flattered and vexed by the antics of their on-stage doubles, while viewers in the upper galleries enjoyed the additional spectacle of fashionable Society catching its likeness in Wilde's cunningly set mirrors" (Kaplan, p. 252). The play premiered at Haymarket Theatre on 19 April 1893 and ran until 16 August for 113 performances. A further 50 large-paper copies were also issued. This copy has the bookplate of Giles Alexander Esmé Gordon (1940-2003), a successful and notoriously Wildean literary agent. "He commanded the loyalty and affection of those who fell under his spell" and once stated, "I never see the point of modesty" (ODNB). His bookplate was designed by his first wife Margaret Anna Gordon (née Eastoe, 1939-1989), the children's book illustrator who collaborated with Elisabeth Beresford on The Wombles series. It later passed into the significant theatre collection of Clive Hirschhorn (b. 1940), who spent decades as the Sunday Express's film and theatre critic and whose various histories of Hollywood include The Warner Bros. Story (1978) and The Hollywood Musical (1981). Hirschhorn's ownership inscription is pencilled on the front pastedown. Mason 364. Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, 1988; Joel Kaplan, "Wilde on the Stage", The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde, ed. by Peter Raby, 1997. Small quarto. Original pink linen with gilt floral decorations by Charles Shannon, spine lettered in gilt, top edge trimmed, other edges uncut. Housed in custom red cloth folding box. Publisher's advertisement bookplate on front pastedown and their 16-page catalogue, dated March 1894, at end, all as called for. Spine lightly bumped and faded, binding a little mottled, gilt and covers bright, foxing to edges and endpapers, free endpapers with tape offsetting from previous book protector, text clean. A very good copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
WILDE, Oscar. A Woman of No Importance. John Lane, London, 1894.
Price: US$6000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Tall 8vo ,lavender cloth, faded to tan, with gilt designs, considerably browned on the spine and edges; pages untrimmed, London: John Lane, 1894. Limited First Edition. Mason, 365. One of only 50 copies, printed simultaneously with the first trade edition. Internally fine and clean.
Seller: Argosy Book Store, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
WILDE, Oscar. A Woman of No Importance. , 1894.
Price: US$7364.97 + shipping
Description: First edition, one of 50 large paper copies. Small 4to., original straw coloured buckram, uncut. London: John Lane, Mason, 365. Spine and parts of cover darkened. Very good copy with wear at head of spine, some faint damp-staining to the boards, bookplate of Willis Vickery, whose large library was sold in 1933.
Seller: Maggs Bros. Ltd ABA, ILAB, PBFA, BA, London, United Kingdom
Price: US$7685.18 + shipping
Description: First edition, large paper issue, one of 50 copies attractively printed on handmade paper with wide margins and bound in tan buckram. The trade issue consisted of 500 copies printed on smaller, machine-made paper bound in pink linen. This satirical play on English manners premiered at Haymarket Theatre on 19 April 1893 and ran until 16 August for 113 performances. Wilde's opulent production used "the market forces of luxury dressmaking to comment upon the worlds of his Haymarket patrons. Audiences in the stalls and boxes continued to be both flattered and vexed by the antics of their on-stage doubles, while viewers in the upper galleries enjoyed the additional spectacle of fashionable Society catching its likeness in Wilde's cunningly set mirrors" (Kaplan, p. 252). The first show met with applause for the actors and boos for the playwright, causing Wilde to announce from behind a curtain, "Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that Mr Oscar Wilde is not in the house" (Ellmann, p. 381). Mason 365. Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde, 1988; Joel Kaplan, "Wilde on the Stage", The Cambridge Companion to Oscar Wilde, ed. by Peter Raby, 1997. Small quarto. Original tan buckram with gilt floral decorations by Charles Shannon, spine lettered in gilt, fore and bottom edges uncut. Spine toned, gilt bright, endpapers browned, contents fresh. A near-fine copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
WILDE, Oscar. A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE. John Lane, 1894.
Price: US$8325.61 + shipping
Description: First edition, one of 50 large paper copies printed on handmade paper. 4to. Original caramel buckram, with five gilt vignettes by Charles Shannon to each board and lettered in gilt with like vignettes to the spine. Fore- and bottom-edge untrimmed. A very good copy indeed, spine tanned as often and a trace of wear to the corners, but a crisp copy. Internally exceptionally clean and fresh. A Woman Of No Importance, written following the success of Lady Windermere's Fan as Wilde's fame rose to its highest pitch, was performed first at the Haymarket Theatre on April 19th 1893, having been composed while staying at Babbacombe, Torquay for the previous summer season. This limited edition of fifty copies was published simultaneously with the trade edition towards the end of 1894, in anticipation of the opening of An Ideal Husband the following January. Mason 365.
Seller: Jonkers Rare Books, Henley on Thames, OXON, United Kingdom