The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

Some might say that Oscar Wilde was the most famous inmate that Reading Gaol ever housed.

Wilde served two years hard labour; a very harsh sentence, and whilst there he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol - a moving poem describing the hardships that he and others faced at Reading Gaol.

Here is an excerpt:

I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
  With sails of silver by.

~ Oscar Wilde

 Author: Oscar Wilde. Illustrations by Peter Hay

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