'_The Ballad
of Reading Goal_' _was published anonymously under the signature of C.
of Reading Goal_' _was published anonymously under the signature of C.
Wilde - Poems
36 ESSEX STREET W. C.
LONDON
* * * * *
_This Volume was First _August 17th_, _1911_
Published_
_Second Edition_ _August_ _1911_
_Third Edition_ _September_ _1911_
* * * * *
'_The Ballad of Reading Goal_' _was first published by Leonard Smithers_,
_February 13th_, _1898_. _Second Edition_, _February_, _1898_. _Third
Edition_, _March 1898_. _Fourth Edition_, _March 1898_. _Fifth
Edition_, _March 1898_. _Sixth Edition_, _1898_. _Seventh Edition_,
_1899_. _Eighth and Cheaper Edition_ (_1s. net_). _Methuen & Co. _,
_Ltd. _, _August 1910_. _Ninth Edition_, _September 1910_.
'_The Ballad
of Reading Goal_' _was published anonymously under the signature of C. 3.
3_. _The author's name first appeared on the title-page of the Seventh
Edition_. _It was included in the Collected Edition of the author's
Poems published by Messrs. Methuen in 1908 and 1909_.
* * * * *
_Wilde's Poems were first published in volume form in 1881_, _and were
reprinted four times before the end of 1882_. _A new edition with
additional poems_, _including Ravenna_, _The Sphinx_, _and The Ballad of
Reading Gaol_, _was first published_ (_limited issues on hand-made paper
and Japanese vellum_) _by Methuen & Co. in March 1908_. _A further
edition_ (_making the seventh_) _with some omissions from the issue of
1908_, _but including two new poems_, _was published in September 1909_.
_Eighth Edition_, _November 1909_. _Ninth Edition_, _December 1909_.
PREFACE
IT is thought that a selection from Oscar Wilde's early verses may be of
interest to a large public at present familiar only with the always
popular _Ballad of Reading Gaol_, also included in this volume. The
poems were first collected by their author when he was twenty-sex years
old, and though never, until recently, well received by the critics, have
survived the test of NINE editions. Readers will be able to make for
themselves the obvious and striking contrasts between these first and
last phases of Oscar Wilde's literary activity. The intervening period
was devoted almost entirely to dramas, prose, fiction, essays, and
criticism.
