The Ballad of Reading Gaol The Ballad of Reading Gaol The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand, after his release from Reading Gaol () on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading after being convicted of homosexual offences in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour in prison. During his imprisonment, on Tuesday, 7 July 1896, a hanging took place. Charles Thomas Wooldridge had been a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards. He was convicted of cutting the throat of his wife, Laura Ellen, earlier that year at Clewer, near Windsor. He was
Ballad of the Broken Seas Ballad of the Broken Seas Ballad of the Broken Seas is an album released by Isobel Campbell and the first collaboration between her and Mark Lanegan. It made the shortlist for the 2006 Mercury Music Prize and was one of NME's top one hundred albums of the decade. The Mercury nomination provoked some criticism, as collaborator Mark Lanegan is American and the award is for British and Irish artists only. However Campbell wrote most of the tracks and self-produced the album. Campbell had written the music and some of the lyrics, before sending it to Lanegan. All songs written by