Get Your Free Audiobook

Prime logo New to Audible Prime Member exclusive:
2 credits with free trial
1 credit a month to use on any title to download and keep
Listen to anything from the Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks
Download titles to your library and listen offline
₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol cover art

The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Written by: Oscar Wilde
Narrated by: Rob Goll
Free with 30-day trial

₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for ₹239.00

Buy Now for ₹239.00

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice.

Publisher's Summary

Something was dead in each of us,
And what was dead was Hope.

In this moving poetic study of his experiences in the Victorian penal system, Wilde relates the relentlessness and tedium of prison life, and of the haunted thoughts which trouble these "souls in agony" within their "numbered tombs".

Oscar Wilde wrote "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" while in exile in France in 1897, following his two-year imprisonment at the establishment. During his incarceration, a former trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, Charles Thomas Woolridge, was convicted of the murder of his wife and hanged at the Gaol. This event is central to the poem's narrative. Wilde dedicated the piece to Woolridge.

Public Domain (P)2017 Rob Goll

What listeners say about The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.