Charles Thomas Wooldridge Charles Thomas Wooldridge Charles Thomas Wooldridge (c.1866 – 7 July 1896) was a Trooper in the Royal Horse Guards who was executed in Reading Gaol for the murder of his wife and who, as 'C.T.W', was the dedicatee of Oscar Wilde's "The Ballad of Reading Gaol". The son of Eleanor (born c.1827) and Charles Wooldridge (born c.1824), Wooldridge was born in East Garston and joined the Royal Horse Guards in 1886. He married Laura Ellen "Nell" Glendell (1873–1896) in 1894 when his regiment was posted to Windsor. However, as his commanding officer had not given permission for the wedding to
The Ballad of a Small Player by Tom Shone in "The New York Times". China scholar Paul French in the "Los Angeles Review of Books" wrote: "I'll come right out and say it... Osborne's novel is the best on contemporary China since Malraux's." The Ballad of a Small Player The Ballad of a Small Player is a 2014 novel by British writer Lawrence Osborne. Set in the gambling casinos of Macau, it follows the fortunes of an English con man who passes himself off as a runaway Lord. Part ghost story, part psychological thriller, it earned Osborne comparisons with Graham Greene and Dostoievsky. The novel was