THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL BY OSCAR WILDE 1899 [1907] HATCHARDS LEATHER BINDING

[WILDE, OSCAR]. The Ballad of Reading Gaol. London: Leonard Smithers, MDCCCXCIX. [i.e. ca. 1907].

REPRINT; leather bound, hardcover, slim octavo (22.5 x 14 x 1.5cm), ff. [4], 31 [printed and numbered on rectos only]. Beautifully rebound in three quarter morocco by Hatchards, marbled sides, top edge gilt, other edges uneven, half-title. Condition: VERY GOOD. Binding tight and secure. Slight dulling to spine. A few trivial fox spots. Previous owner details to front endpaper. An exquisite copy in a handsome signed binding.

Notes: The last published work of Oscar Wilde penned before his death in exile in November of 1900, inspired by his witnessing of an execution while imprisoned in Reading Gaol, after being convicted of 'gross indecency' in 1895. This copy being the final unauthorised edition of Oscar Wilde's anonymously authored poem by the printer of the original first edition - an unauthorised edition, based upon the seventh printing of the work, which was the first to feature Wilde's name to the title page. Identified as an unauthorised edition by the lack of a publisher's address to the title-page, it was published by Smithers circa 1907. According to Mason's Wilde bibliography, about one thousand copies of this edition were seized by Wilde's literary executor, with litigation threatened, thus ending the production of these unauthorised editions. A smart copy of the scarce final unauthorised edition of this important work from Wilde. [Mason, 585].