The Ballad of Reading Gaol

London: Leonard Smithers and Xo, 1899. Cloth. Very Good. Seventh edition (printing) and first to include Wilde's name on title page. Slim 8vo (in 4s), pp. [viii], 31 printed and numbered on recto, [2]. Original quarter cream cloth, spine lettered in gilt, fawn cloth boards. Edges untrimmed. Grubby and stained, extremities bruised and worn, white stains to leading edges. Edges and endpapers toned and scantly foxed. Emmeline Garnett's sober ex libris to ffep, plus inscription above in blue ink: "Emmeline Garnett/ July 1946/ St. Leonards". Else, clean and bright. A robust copy of the last authorised edition published by Smithers; one of 2000 copies. Very good Composed during Wilde's exile in Bernavel-le-Grand with Robbie Ross following his two-year incarceration for gross indecency under the Labouchere Amendment Act and first published under his prison cell number at Reading, 'C.3.3'. The popularity of Wilde's ballad afforded him a small income for the rest of his life, having been forced to admit bankruptcy whilst imprisoned. Emmeline Garnett (1924-2022) was a "teacher, author and historian par excellence", who wrote extensively about Lancashire, including John Marsden's Will: The Hornby Castle Dispute, 1780-1840 and Juvenile Offenders in Victorian Lancashire: W. J. Garnett and the Bleasdale Reformatory as well as Florence Nightingale's Nuns.