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'This
edition does full justice to Wilde’s harrowing masterpiece
with a specially designed typeface by Geoff Sawers and outstanding
illustrations by Peter Hay.
‘I
have seldom seen the Ballad illustrated with more simple power
and by someone who hasn’t just read it, but obviously
knows a good deal about Wilde’s life in prison and has
felt his way under Oscar’s skin for the duration of that
terrible experience’
Merlin Holland
A very limited number of the numbered hardback are still
available
read an extract from The Ballad of
Reading Gaol
A
Ladder for Mr. Oscar Wilde
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We
tore the tarry rope to shreds
With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
And clattered with the pails.
We sewed
the sacks, we broke the stones,
We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
Terror was lying still.
So still
it lay that every day
Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
We passed an open grave.
With yawning
mouth the yellow hole
Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
Some prisoner had to swing.
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