Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde




It is thought that a selection from Oscar Wilde's early verses may
be of interest to a large public at present familiar only with the
always popular BALLAD OF READING GAOL, also included in this
volume. The poems were first collected by their author when he was
twenty-sex years old, and though never, until recently, well
received by the critics, have survived the test of NINE editions.
Readers will be able to make for themselves the obvious and
striking contrasts between these first and last phases of Oscar
Wilde's literary activity. The intervening period was devoted
almost entirely to dramas, prose, fiction, essays, and criticism.

Robert Ross
Reform Club,
April 5, 1911



Contents


The Ballad Of Reading Gaol
Ave Imperatrix
To My Wife - With A Copy Of My Poems
Magdalen Walks
Theocritus - A Villanelle