Books

London: Leonard Smithers, 1898. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Limited to 800 copies. Very Good. Quarter beige cloth with yellow cloth on the boards, lightly soiled and toned, bumped at the corners, a few air bubbles between the cloth and boards. Bound with some reading wear and a forward lean, foxed and stained at the endpapers, clean otherwise. The first unsigned edition of Wilde's classic poem composed after his release from the titular prison.

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.

Look for the publisher Leonard Smithers, the year 1898.