Oscar Wilde’s Portraits, Poems, Letters and Manuscripts Head to Auction 125 Years After His Death

Other rare items, available for purchase in February, include illustrations, theater programs, telegrams and newspapers

Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent

January 20, 2026

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A collection of more than 150 poems, letters, manuscripts and signed books once belonging to Oscar Wilde—the Irish writer celebrated for his sharp wit—is heading to the auction block this February, just a few months after the 125th anniversary of his death.

Highlights of the sale include rare portraits of the young writer, captured in photographer Napoleon Sarony’s New York studio shortly after Wilde arrived in America for the first time, in 1882. The 27-year-old is outfitted in a velvet jacket, silk stockings and patent leather shoes. When Sarony’s images started circulating, they “cast Wilde in the public imagination as a sartorial icon radiating charisma and intelligence,” as Artnet’s Min Chen writes.

It would be a few years before the writer who set the studio aflame that day would publish the works for which he is now well-known, including The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) and De Profundis, which he wrote while imprisoned for his homosexuality between 1895 and 1897.

Presented by the auction house Bonhams in London on February 18, the lots come from the collection of Jeremy Mason, who has been accumulating Wilde memorabilia since he purchased a first-edition copy of The Importance of Being Earnest that once belonged to the actor Ernest Thesiger many years ago.

“The collection just grew from there and now contains books, letters and manuscripts from each period of Wilde’s life from childhood, school years, America, his fame as an author, the theater ‘golden years’ and the tragedy and exile,” Mason says in a statement. “Most importantly, the collection has been enhanced by the inclusion of evocative items of ephemera, which have added color to the Wilde story and were so important to me when deciding which other items to add.”

Oscar Wilde: The Collection of Jeremy Mason

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Some of these items include trade cards and illustrations advertising Wilde’s tour of North America in 1882, as well as reviews and articles Wilde wrote for various magazines. Other lots feature sheet music and theater programs from performances of Wilde’s plays.

A first-edition copy of Wilde’s French-language play, Salome (1893), inscribed to Stuart Merrill, a writer and friend who helped Wilde with his French, is expected to be the biggest-ticket item, with an estimate of $20,000 to $33,000. Merrill organized a petition calling for Wilde’s clemency after he was jailed, and the lot includes two of his letters that comment on the case.

During his imprisonment in England, Wilde wrote De Profundis, a 50,000-word manuscript addressed to Lord Alfred Douglas, whom Wilde affectionately called “Bosie.” Considered by some to be one of the greatest love letters ever written, it remains a celebrated work to this day. This March, the Museum of Literature Ireland will stage an adaptation of the work.

In 2016, an iron key to Wilde’s jail cell was sold at a Sotheby’s auction. The key was once used to open all the doors in the prison’s cell block C, including Wilde’s.

“The heavy dark Victorian key does speak quite loudly and poignantly of the contrast between the freedom and lightness of Oscar Wilde’s wit and that terrible time in his life,” Gabriel Heaton, an expert in English literature at Sotheby’s, told the Guardian’s Maev Kennedy ahead of the sale.

Christian Thorsberg | Read More

Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.