The Ballad of Reading Gaol

The Ballad of Reading Gaol
by Oscar Wilde

Narrated by Tom Saer

While serving a prison sentence at Reading Gaol, Wilde became familiar with the case of another prisoner, Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a Royal Horse Guards trooper, who had been sentenced to death for the murder of his wife. Wooldridge was executed at the gaol on 7th July, 1896.

After his release from prison in 1897, Wilde moved to France, where the poem was written, and later published in 1898. The first published version identified the author only as C.3.3, the name allocated to Wilde as a prisoner.

In this poem Wilde broods on the life-changing effects of witnessing capital punishment.

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