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The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile either in Berneval or in Dieppe, France, after his release from Reading Gaol on or about 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, on Saturday 7 July 1896, a hanging took place. Charles Thomas Wooldridge (ca. 1866 – 7 July 1896) had been a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards. He was convicted of cutting the throat of his wife, Laura Ellen, earlier that year at Clewer, near Windsor. He was only aged 30 when executed. This had a profound effect on Wilde, inspiring the line "Yet each man kills the thing he loves."
The finished poem was published by Leonard Smithers in 1898 under the name C.3.3., which stood for cell block C, landing 3, cell 3. This ensured that Wilde's name – by then notorious – did not appear on the poem's front cover. It was not commonly known, until the 7th printing in June 1899, that C.3.3. was actually Wilde.
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Book Details
Published in
Boston
Edition Notes
8vo. Unpaginated, [16] pp. Reprint after the first Bartlett edition of 1902, bound in the original brown paper wraps with black lettering on the front wrap and a black publisher's device on the rear wrap. The fore-edges and bottoms of leaves are untrimmed and the book is hand bound with black string.
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- Created November 2, 2008
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December 1, 2011 | Edited by Violet | Edited without comment. |
December 1, 2011 | Edited by Violet | Update covers |
December 1, 2011 | Edited by Violet | Added new cover |
December 1, 2011 | Edited by Violet | Update covers |
November 2, 2008 | Created by ImportBot | Imported from University of Toronto MARC record. |