The Ballad Of Reading Gaol, And Other Poems

Author: Oscar Wilde

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  • : $27.99 AUD
  • : 9780141192673
  • : Penguin Books, Limited
  • : Penguin Books, Limited
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  • : 0.145
  • : May 2010
  • : 1.1 Centimeters X 12.9 Centimeters X 19.8 Centimeters
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  • : 22.95
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  • : books

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  • : Oscar Wilde
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  • : BC
  • : 1
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  • : English
  • : 821.8
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  • : 254
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Barcode 9780141192673
9780141192673

Description

This poem - originally published anonymously, written after Wilde's two year's hard labour in Reading prison - is the tale of a man who has been sentenced to hang for the murder of the woman he loved. The Ballad of Reading Gaol follows the inmate through his final three weeks, as he stares at the sky and silently drinks his beer ration. Heart-wrenching and eye-opening, the ballad also expresses perfectly Wilde's belief that humanity is made up only of offenders, each of us deserving a greater charity for the severity of our crimes.

Author description

Oscar Fingall O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford where, a disciple of Pater, he founded an aesthetic cult. In 1884 he married Constance Lloyd, and his two sons were born in 1885 and 1886.
His novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and social comedies Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), established his reputation. In 1895, following his libel action against the Marquess of Queesberry, Wilde was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for homosexual conduct, as a result of which he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), and his confessional letter De Profundis (1905). On his release from prison in 1897 he lived in obscurity in Europe, and died in Paris in 1900.