(Wilde, Oscar). The Ballad of Reading Gaol by C.3.3.

New York: Brentano's, no date (ca. 1898). Original 8vo sheets inlaid to heavy quarto leaves. Illustrated with 19 original illustrations in pen and ink, graphite, gouache, and watercolor, by Isabel Lyndall, George Gibbs, Walter Faucett, F.V. Wilson, E. Horter, H.S. Pullinger, M.C. Craven, James Preston, T.H. Wilkinson, J.L.G. Ferris, Victor Bruce, D. Wiggins, and others; several text leaves adorned with additional pencil and watercolor drawings. Finely bound in brown morocco, grey morocco panel on front cover, pictorially decorated in gilt, and with light brown, black, and orange onlay, depicting a prison yard scene; spine lettered in gilt and with four red morocco heart-shaped onlay; all edges gilt; elaborate gilt and blue morocco pictorial dentelles, depicting a prisoner kneeling in their cell at front and of a spider web at rear; light blue moiré silk endleaves; by Hyman Zucker; scattered light spotting and offsetting to text; original cloth bound in at rear.

A fine extra-illustrated copy of Oscar Wilde's poem, written following his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, in England. Finely bound in a pictorial morocco binding by Hyman Zucker, and featuring 19 original illustrations by leading American illustrators of the time, showing various prison scenes.

This lot is located in Philadelphia.

Provenance

From the collection of Justin G. Schiller

(Wilde, Oscar). The Ballad of Reading Gaol by C.3.3.