Books

Greenwich, Conn: The Literary Collector Press, 1905. Third edition. Hardcover. g+ to vg. 5/25. Sextodecimo. Unpaginated. Original gray boards with black lettering with red ruling on printed labels on cover and spine. Publisher's device on title page, print in red and black. Decorative head pieces. Collectors Reprints No. 3. Of this reprint 25 copies on Japanese vellum and 275 on American handmade paper have been printed and the type distributed. No. 5. Horodisch page 80. Spine sunned. Block sunned along edges. Binding and interior in overall goo+ to very good condition.

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.