THE BALLAD OF
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* * * * METHUEN & CO. LTD.36 ESSEX STREET W.C.LONDON * * * * * _This Volume was First _August 17th_, _1911_Published__Second Edition_ _August_ _1911__Third Edition_ _September_ _1911_ * * * * * ‘_The Ballad of Reading Goal_’ _was first published by Leonard Smithers_,_February 13th_, _1898_. _Second Edition_, _February_, _1898_. _ThirdEdition_, _March 1898_. _Fourth Edition_, _March 1898_. _FifthEdition_, _March 1898_. _Sixth Edition_, _1898_. _Seventh Edition_,_1899_. _Eighth and Cheaper Edition_ (_1s. net_). _Methuen & Co._,_Ltd._, _August 1910_. _Ninth Edition_, _September 1910_. ‘_The Balladof Reading Goal_’ _was published anonymously under the signature of C. 3.3_. _The author’s name first appeared on the title-page of the SeventhEdition_. _It was included in the Collected Edition of the author’sPoems published by Messrs. Methuen in 1908 and 1909_. * * * * * _Wilde’s Poems were first published in volume form in 1881_, _and werereprinted four times before the end of 1882_. _A new edition withadditional poems_, _including Ravenna_, _The Sphinx_, _and The Ballad ofReading Gaol_, _was first published_ (_limited issues on hand-made paperand Japanese vellum_) _by Methuen & Co. in March 1908_. _A furtheredition_ (_making the seventh_) _with some omissions from the issue of1908_, _but including two new poems_, _was published in September 1909_._Eighth Edition_, _November 1909_. _Ninth Edition_, _December 1909_. PREFACE IT is thought that a selection from Oscar Wilde’s early verses may be ofinterest to a large public at present familiar only with the alwayspopular _Ballad of Reading Gaol_, also included in this volume. Thepoems were first collected by their author when he was twenty-sex yearsold, and though never, until recently, well received by the critics, havesurvived the test of NINE editions. Readers will be able to make forthemselves the obvious and striking contrasts between these first andlast phases of Oscar Wilde’s literary activity. The intervening periodwas devoted almost entirely to dramas, prose, fiction, essays, andcriticism.
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