Today I found myself comparing Wilde with Orwell, in a rather heated discussion with students who are reading 1984 as a class novel. We may be guilty of one thing, and punished for another. It strikes me as wise in the absurd way life plays a crooked game of cards with us. I annoyingly often quote the catch line 'yet each man kills the things he loves', and it strikes me as true both in the deeper sense of family dysfunction and in the more shallow waters of breaking your favourite coffee mug by accident. I don't know how many times I have read the Ballad of Reading Gaol, but it is often enough for me to feel shame I don't know it by heart yet. 48 pp 5 x 8 8 wood engravingsįavourite poetry has a tendency to make sudden appearances in my head when I least expect it. His tomb bears an inscription from The Ballad of Reading Gaol: ``And alien tears will fill for him/Pity's long broken urn/For his mourners will be outcast men/And outcasts always mourn.'' This commemorative edition of the poem is illustrated with the powerfully moving wood engravings of Garrick Palmer. His final resting place is the cemetery of Pere Lachaise in Paris. As Wilde observed: ``Something is killed in me.'' Bankrupt, disgraced, and in exile, Wilde was to die not long after his release at the age of 46. I thought I would go mad.'' The Ballad was written from personal experience, and there was to be no more writing after this. As he was later to tell Andre Gide, Reading Gaol ``was not fit for dogs.

Devastated by his notorious trial for indecency, imprisoned for ``homosexual offenses,'' he was to spend two ruinous years in solitary confinement. In his day, his wit and writings enchanted and scandalized society in equal measure his downfall came at the height of his powers. One hundred years after his release from Reading Gaol, the life and work of Oscar Wilde has lost none of its fascination. This dramatically illustrated collector's edition marks the centenary of Oscar Wilde's release from prison in 1898 and the publication of his anguished poetic masterpiece.

Oscar wilde poem the ballad of