In this paper, an exact analytical method is developed for the problem of wave radiation by a uniform cylinder in front of a vertical wall. Based on the image principle, the hydrodynamic problem of a cylinder in front of a vertical wall is transformed into the equivalent problem of double cylinders in unbounded fluid domain. Consequently, an analytical method of eigenfunction expansion is adopted to calculate the radiation of the cylinder due to the motion in surge, sway, roll and pitch, respectively. Moreover, numerical analysis has been carried out in detail in order to discuss the influences of the distance between the cylinder and the vertical wall and water depth on the added mass and radiation damping of the cylinder. It is shown that added mass and damping of the cylinder in front of a vertical wall are evidently different from those in case of the cylinder in unbounded fluid domain from the numerical results. It is also found that the added mass and radiation damping oscillate with wave number, and the oscillating frequency increases with the increasing of the distance between the cylinder and the wall.