The Happy Prince, and other Tales

"Wilde's first authentic work...marked the beginning of his true creativity...Wilde's stories are splendid." -Jeanette Winterson
"...partly for children and partly for those who have kept the childlike faculties of wonder and joy."-Jack Zipes
Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince and Other Stories(1888) is an inscrutable, magical fairy tale collection that has filled readers of all ages with joy and wonder. Each story explores profound truths of love, morality, and suffering; yet there is a poignant beauty that shines through each of these remarkable and timeless tales.
The opening story, "The Happy Prince" is set in a town full of suffering, where a little sparrow who had been abandoned by his flock befriends a gilded statue of a prince who knew no sorrow in his life. The tenderness of their relationship and their empathy towards the ill-fortune of the townsfolk is one of the most touching evocations in all of children's literature; It is also a powerful allegory of inner beauty and the preoccupation with superficiality. The story has been adapted into animated films, radio plays, and a number of musical compositions since its publication.
Another cherished gem within this collection is "The Selfish Giant", one of the most beloved stories in the English literature that tells the tale of a narcissistic giant, his wondrous garden, and the child who transforms his heart. Also included are the stories "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Devoted Friend", and "The Remarkable Rocket".
With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Happy Prince and Other Stories is both modern and readable.

Oscar Wilde (16 October 1854 - 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is best remembered for his epigrams and plays, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the circumstances of his criminal conviction for "gross indecency", imprisonment, and early death at age 46.
Wilde's parents were successful Anglo-Irish intellectuals in Dublin. Their son became fluent in French and German early in life. At university, Wilde read Greats; he proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Trinity College Dublin, then at Oxford. He became known for his involvement in the rising philosophy of aestheticism, led by two of his tutors, Walter Pater and John Ruskin. After university, Wilde moved to London into fashionable cultural and social circles.