Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde
Chapter 1 · 1/11
Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde
Chapter 1
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Transcribed from the 1911 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org SELECTED POEMS OF OSCAR WILDE INCLUDING THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL * * * * * 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_. _Third Edition_, _March 1898_. _Fourth Edition_, _March 1898_. _Fifth Edition_, _March 1898_. _Sixth Edition_, _1898_. _Seventh Edition_, _1899_. _Eighth and Cheaper Edition_ (_1s. net_). _Methuen & Co. _, _Ltd. _, _August 1910_. _Ninth Edition_, _September 1910_. ‘_The Ballad of Reading Goal_’ _was published anonymously under the signature of C. 3_. _The author’s name first appeared on the title-page of the Seventh Edition_. _It was included in the Collected Edition of the author’s Poems published by Messrs. Methuen in 1908 and 1909_. * * * * * _Wilde’s Poems were first published in volume form in 1881_, _and were reprinted four times before the end of 1882_. _A new edition with additional poems_, _including Ravenna_, _The Sphinx_, _and The Ballad of Reading Gaol_, _was first published_ (_limited issues on hand-made paper and Japanese vellum_) _by Methuen & Co. in March 1908_. _A further edition_ (_making the seventh_) _with some omissions from the issue of 1908_, _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 of interest to a large public at present familiar only with the always popular _Ballad of Reading Gaol_, also included in this volume. The poems were first collected by their author when he was twenty-sex years old, and though never, until recently, well received by the critics, have survived the test of NINE editions. Readers will be able to make for themselves the obvious and striking contrasts between these first and last phases of Oscar Wilde’s literary activity. The intervening period was devoted almost entirely to dramas, prose, fiction, essays, and criticism. ROBERT ROSS REFORM CLUB, _April_ 5, 1911. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE v THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL (_Complete Version_) 1 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL (_Shorter Version_) 61 AVE IMPERATRIX 89 TO MY WIFE (WITH A COPY OF MY POEMS) 100 MAGDALEN WALKS 102 THEOCRITUS—A VILLANELLE 106 SONNETS— GREECE 108 PORTIA (TO ELLEN TERRY) 110 FABIEN DEI FRANCHI (TO HENRY IRVING) 112 PHÈDRE (TO SARAH BERNHARDT) 114 ON HEARING THE DIES IRÆ SUNG IN THE 116 SISTINE CHAPEL AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA 118 LIBERTATIS SACRA FAMES 120 ROSES AND RUE 122 FROM ‘THE GARDEN OF EROS’ 128 THE HARLOT’S HOUSE 140 FROM ‘THE BURDEN OF ITYS’ 144 FLOWER OF LOVE 158 NOTE AT the end of the complete text will be found a shorter version based on the original draft of the poem. This is included for the benefit of reciters and their audiences who have found the entire poem too long for declamation. I have tried to obviate a difficulty, without officiously exercising the ungrateful prerogatives of a literary executor, by falling back on a text which represents the author’s first scheme for a poem—never intended of course for recitation. ROBERT ROSS * * * * * IN MEMORIAM C. Sometimes trooper of The Royal Horse Guards Obiit H.M. Prison Reading, Berkshire July 7th, 1896 THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL
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