Front matter
Reading edition
Transcribed from the 1911 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
SELECTED POEMS OF OSCAR WILDE
INCLUDING
THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL
METHUEN & CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON
This Volume was First Published August 17th, 1911
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.