In May 1897 the prisoner in cell number C33 was released from Reading jail: "Oh beautiful world!" he exclaimed, in words probably carefully rehearsed, writes Maev Kennedy.

The words are incorporated in a spectacular riverbank memorial, beside the high prison wall, unveiled yesterday in a tribute to the Berkshire town's involuntary guest, Oscar Wilde.

The poem Wilde wrote after his release from two years' hard labour for gross indecency, the Ballad of Reading Gaol - originally published as "by C.3.3." - has made the town world famous, but until the council commissioned the memorial from the sculptor Bruce Williams and the Irish poet Paul Muldoon there was little for the legion of literary pilgrims to see.

The town council had thought of a modest statue. It has ended up with a tonne of steel, the gates, 30 metres of elaborate railings, four scarlet "love seats", and a memorial bench. "The idea just evolved," Williams said. "I must say they've been brilliant about it."

The unveiling was timed to coincide with today's centenary of Wilde's death in a hotel room in Paris.

His cry of delight at the sight of the world beyond the prison gates is woven into the laser-cut steel.

Instead of using more familiar Wildean aphorisms, the arts officer, Tammy Bedford, explained the work incorporates two new poems, in the gates and on a hard wooden bench, made to the size of the plank bed in the prison cell. One uses the ballad's opening line "As I roved out" to recall both Wilde's ballad and the pain of the man who spent two years "beneath that little tent of blue we prisoners call the sky" unable to rove anywhere.

• Researchers at the British Library have analysed the only known recording of Oscar Wilde reading the Ballad of Reading Gaol, and pronounced it likely to be a fake.