The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898) is a long poem by Oscar Wilde, written after his release from two years' imprisonment. It tells of the hanging of a fellow prisoner and denounces the cruelty of the prison system.
The story behind the poem
While Wilde was in Reading Gaol, a trooper of the Royal Horse Guards, Charles Thomas Wooldridge, was hanged there in July 1896 for murdering his wife. Wilde saw him walking in the exercise yard.
The poem follows the condemned man's last weeks, his execution and burial in quicklime, and the dread it spread among the other prisoners.
Signed C.3.3.
Wilde wrote the poem in France, at Berneval, in 1897. It was published in February 1898 under the name C.3.3., his cell number.
Wilde's name appeared only from the seventh edition. The poem sold well and was his last work.
A protest
The ballad attacks the solitary confinement, hunger and silence of Victorian prisons. Wilde also wrote two letters to the Daily Chronicle on the treatment of prisoners and children in jail.
The Prison Act of 1898, passed the same year, softened some of the regime he had described.
Anecdotes
A cell number
C.3.3. meant block C, landing 3, cell 3 of Reading Gaol, where Wilde spent most of his sentence.
An epitaph
Lines from the poem are carved on Wilde's tomb at the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, sculpted by Jacob Epstein.
Frequently asked questions
Who was the hanged man in the poem?
Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a soldier executed at Reading in 1896.
Why was it signed C.3.3.?
It was Wilde's cell number in Reading Gaol.
Was it Wilde's last work?
Yes, he published nothing else before his death in 1900.