Fairy Tales
Wilde wrote nine fairy tales, published in two books three years apart. He told his sons Cyril and Vyvyan stories at bedtime, but the tales were never only for children: they are about love, pride, sacrifice and the cost of beautiful things.
Most take between ten and twenty-five minutes to read aloud.
The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)
Wilde's first book of fairy tales, published in May 1888 with illustrations by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood. Five stories written, he said, for childlike people from eighteen to eighty.
The Devoted Friend
Little Hans gives everything to the rich Miller, who talks beautifully about friendship and gives nothing back. A water-rat and a linnet argue over the moral.
The Happy Prince
A gilded statue who can see all the misery of his city asks a swallow to strip him of his jewels and gold, one piece at a time, for the poor.
The Nightingale and the Rose
A student needs a red rose to win a girl's hand, and a nightingale decides to make one for him from moonlight and her own heart's blood.
The Remarkable Rocket
A firework at a royal wedding is so full of his own importance that he misses the celebration entirely. Wilde's funniest portrait of vanity.
The Selfish Giant
A giant walls the children out of his garden, and winter refuses to leave it until he learns to let them back in.
A House of Pomegranates (1891)
The second book of fairy tales, published in 1891 with designs by Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon. Longer, darker and more ornate than the first.
The Birthday of the Infanta
A little Spanish princess is entertained on her birthday by a dwarf who dances for her and falls in love, until he sees himself in a mirror.
The Fisherman and His Soul
A young fisherman cuts away his soul so that he can live beneath the sea with a mermaid, and the soul, left alone in the world, comes back to tempt him.
The Star-Child
A beautiful foundling grows up proud and cruel, turns away his own beggar mother, and must wander the world in ugliness until he learns pity.
The Young King
On the night before his coronation, a young king who loves beautiful things dreams of the weavers, divers and miners who suffer to make his robe, pearls and crown.