Books

First edition with wood engravings by Frans Masereel. No. 115 of the limited edition of 250 on laid paper. Signed by Frans Masereel in the imprint. Description: Original half calf over marbled boards, gilt title to spine. Quarto: 28 × 18,5 cm; pp. 57, [4] ll. With 37 original woodcuts (of which 7 full-page, printed recto only) by Frans Masereel. Ref.: Ritter: C 29, S. 258; Rodenberg: 448 Condition: Binding somewhat scuffed at joints and corners and partly faded. Contents clean and free of marks, but slightly toned with age. Overall a very good copy. Notes: The Ballad of Reading Gaol was printed by Offizin Mandruck in Munich as the 11th Obelisk print with the original English text. The woodcuts were cut by Masereel in early 1923 and were printed from the original woodblocks. In addition to this edition, 70 copies were published, numbered I to LXX, in which the full-page woodcuts were also signed by Masereel, and 20 unnumbered and unsigned copies.

The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand, after his release from Reading Gaol (/rɛdɪŋ dʒeɪl/) on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading after being convicted of homosexual offences in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour in prison. During his imprisonment, he witnessed the events leading up to the hanging of Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, for the murder of his wife; these events inspired the poem.