Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Poetry Please

Podcasts

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Roger McGough introduces selections of poetry on various themes, chosen by listeners.

BBC Radio 4 LW

Poetry Please: The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

Audiobooks

07/10/2012

The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

BBC Radio 4 - Poetry Please, The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

Roger McGough presents Alex Jennings reading Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol, read by Alex Jennings. Presented by Roger McGough.

In May 1897 Oscar Wilde was released from Reading Gaol. That month he began to write The Ballad of Reading Gaol - to express his horror and outrage at what he had witnessed during his years in prison. The poem memorialises a fellow prisoner, who was hanged for murder in 1896. 

Wilde wrote it in exile in Dieppe, then Naples. He finished it in October that same year, and it was published the following year, 1898. The author's name was given simply as C. 3. 3., Wilde's number in Reading Gaol, his cell being the third on the third floor of Block C. 

Producer Beth O'Dea.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Poetry Please

The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4