The Ballad of Reading Gaol - Softcover

Oscar Wilde

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1535387637 ISBN 13: 9781535387637

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016

Synopsis

"The Ballad of Reading Gaol" is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile either in Berneval-le-Grand or in Dieppe, France, after his release from Reading Gaol (pronounced "redding jail") 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, on Tuesday, 7 July 1896, a hanging took place. Charles Thomas Wooldridge 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 aged 30 when executed.

About this title

About the Author

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death. Wilde's parents were successful Anglo-Irish Dublin intellectuals. Their son became fluent in French and German early in life. At university, Wilde read Greats; he proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Dublin, then at Oxford. He became known for his involvement in the rising philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.

From Library Journal

Woodstock's facsimile series takes a walk on the Wilde side with this poetry duo from 1898 and 1892, respectively. The former volume offers one long poem, while the latter contains about 50 shorter pieces. These reproductions additionally include scholarly introductions.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1535387637
• ISBN 13: 9781535387637
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 44