Oscar WILDE. The Ballad of Reading Gaol by C. 3. 3. London, - Lot 35

Oscar WILDE. The Ballad of Reading Gaol by C. 3. 3. London, Leonard Smithers, 1898. In-8 of (4) ff. 31 ff. printed recto only, (1) blank f.: cream half-percale, smooth spine, mustard percale boards, untrimmed (publisher's binding). First edition. Printed by the Chiswick Press for Leonard Smithers in an edition of 830 copies: one of 800 on Van Gelder laid paper. From the Nigel Sligh library, with engraved armorial bookplate. Spine browned and binding slightly stained. Two other editions of the Ballad by Leonard Smithers are included: - The Ballad of Reading Gaol by C. 3. 3. [Oscar Wilde]. London, Leonard Smithers, 1899. In-8 of (4) ff. 31 ff. printed recto only, (1) f. marked Chiswick Press, publisher's binding in cream half-percale. Seventh edition, the first to appear with Oscar Wilde's name on the title. Edition of 2000 copies. - The Ballad of Reading Gaol by C. 3. 3. [Oscar Wilde]. London, Leonard Smithers, 1899 [between 1900 and 1907]. In the course of 1898, Leonard Smithers published six editions of The Ballad of Reading Gaol: in June 1899, he issued the seventh and last authorized edition, on the title of which, for the first time, the author's name appears in square brackets. Subsequently, after Oscar Wilde's death on November 30, 1900, Leonard Smithers himself published pirated editions printed by G. Woolley: a very close copy of the seventh edition, albeit recomposed, this forgery was reprinted several times in stereotype until Smithers' death on December 19, 1907 (Mason, Bibliography of Oscar Wilde, no. 370a, 378 and 584).