WILDE, Oscar.

£12,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Ballad of Reading Gaol. By C.3.3. First edition, number 17 of 30 copies printed on japon, presented here in a restrained contemporary morocco binding. The limitation is handwritten in purple ink by Leonard Smithers. A further 800 copies on handmade paper were published simultaneously.Wilde wrote the poem while exiled in France and published it under the pseudonym "C.3.3." after his cell in Reading Gaol (the third cell on the third landing of Gallery C). The first edition sold out rapidly, and a second edition was issued within weeks.

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