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The Ballad of Reading Gaol

by Oscar Wilde

Downloads: Under 100
First published: 1898
Pages: 30

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The Ballad of Reading Gaol
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The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1897) is a public domain work.

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About this book

Written after his release from prison, this long poem is unlike anything else Wilde produced. It tells of a fellow inmate put to death for killing his wife, and it widens into a haunting meditation on guilt, punishment, and the line, repeated like a tolling bell, that each man kills the thing he loves. Gone are the epigrams and the glitter; in their place is plain, pounding grief and a fierce compassion for the condemned. Drawn from the suffering of his own two years of hard labor, it stands as both his greatest poem and one of the strongest protests against the cruelty of the prison system ever written. Free to download as a PDF or EPUB.

About the author

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish author, poet and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential dramatists in London in the early 1890s.