Perhaps you intend them for a friend, or for yourself. Perhaps you intend to read them to a child.

You are holding in your hands five of those wonderful stories. In his memoir, Son of Oscar Wilde, Vyvyan will immortalize a private version of his father as ‘a smiling giant’ who ‘told us all his own written fairy stories’. Vyvyan will become a translator and declare himself ‘proud of my father and his place in English literature’.

Cyril will be killed on the Western Front in 1915. Both will serve in the British Army during the First World War. Years will pass the boys will become men. In 1895, he will be sent to jail, and his sons will never see him again. They will remember it as long as they live. When he rears up, they grip his shoulders, nuzzling into his neck and inhaling the smell of him, a familiar mixture of cigarette smoke and eau de cologne. Now he crawls, then races around the house like a beast let loose, romping from the nursery into the dining room, over chairs and under tables. He will become any animal they wish: he roars like a lion for them, then howls like a wolf and neighs like a horse. He has put all two hundred pounds of himself at their service. Their grandmother calls them princes and he, their father, does their bidding. Two excited little children named Vyvyan and Cyril sit astride his back. He is down on the nursery floor, all six feet four inches of him. Picture Oscar Wilde – imposing, sophisticated, elegantly dressed in a tailored suit – on all fours.

Read More about The Happy Prince & Other Tales Read Less about The Happy Prince & Other Tales With an introduction by Wilde expert Michèle Mendelssohn, The Happy Prince & Other Tales is certain to surprise and delight children and adults alike. This beautiful collector’s edition includes original watercolor illustrations and decorative motifs from the 1913 edition by Charles Robinson. What is love? asks “The Happy Prince.” How do you get what you need? asks “The Nightingale and the Rose.” How do you win friends-and avoid alienating people? Can you have too much compassion? How can you set the world on fire?īy turns moving and funny, these stories teach free thinking rather than giving prescriptive lessons. Featuring princesses, ogres, and talking animals, The Happy Prince & Other Tales poses questions that are as pertinent now as they were at the turn of the century. This collection of children’s stories, first published in 1888, explores timeless themes of good and evil, freedom and responsibility, love and death, beauty and self-sacrifice. Oscar Wilde’s stories have given pleasure to generations of readers. A collector’s edition of Oscar Wilde’s stories for children.

The happy prince 1888