Books

The Third Edition of this poem. Collector Reprints No. 3. # 66 of 275 copies printed on American hand-made paper. In the original gray paper boards with black lettering and red ruling on paper labels at cover and spine. Very Good Minus, bottom 3 1/4" of paper at spine is gone. Internally clean and tight, last page uncut. [39] pages. SCARCE.

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.