The Happy Prince and Other Stories

by Oscar Wilde

Overview

The richness of Oscar Wilde's way with words and ideas are given full range in this sparkling collection of short stories written between 1887 and 1891.

Illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley, with an Afterword by David Stuart Davies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781509827824
Publisher:	Macmillan Collector's Library
Publication date:	04/04/2017
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	4.00(w) x 5.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He went to Trinity College, Dublin and then to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he began to propagandize the new Aesthetic (or 'Art for Art's Sake') Movement. Despite winning a first and the Newdigate Prize for Poetry, Wilde failed to obtain an Oxford scholarship, and was forced to earn a living by lecturing and writing for periodicals. After his marriage to Constance Lloyd in 1884, he tried to establish himself as a writer, but with little initial success. However, his three volumes of short fiction, The Happy Prince (1888), Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (1891) and A House of Pomegranates (1891), together with his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), gradually won him a reputation as a modern writer with an original talent, a reputation confirmed and enhanced by the phenomenal success of his Society Comedies - Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, all performed on the West End stage between 1892 and 1895. Success, however, was short-lived. In 1891 Wilde had met and fallen extravagantly in love with Lord Alfred Douglas. In 1895, when his success as a dramatist was at its height, Wilde brought an unsuccessful libel action against Douglas's father, the Marquess of Queensberry. Wilde lost the case and two trials later was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for acts of gross indecency. As a result of this experience he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol. He was released from prison in 1897 and went into an immediate self-imposed exile on the Continent. He died in Paris in ignominy in 1900.

Date of Birth:

October 16, 1854

Date of Death:

November 30, 1900

Place of Birth:

Dublin, Ireland

Place of Death:

Paris, France

Education:

The Royal School in Enniskillen, Dublin, 1864; Trinity College, Dublin, 1871; Magdalen College, Oxford, England, 1874

Table of Contents

THE HAPPY PRINCE AND OTHER TALES
The Happy Prince
The Nightingale and the Rose
The Selfish Giant
The Devoted Friend
The Remarkable Rocket
LORD ARTHUR SAVILE’S CRIME AND OTHER STORIES
Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime
The Model Millionaire
The Sphinx without a Secret
The Canterville Ghost
A HOUSE OF POMEGRANATES
The Young King
The Birthday of the Infanta
The Fisherman and his Soul
The Star-Child
Afterword
Selected Bibliography
Biography

Editorial Reviews

Young's haunting pastels illustrate the classic story of a bird and a golden statue who give all to help the poor. Ages 6-8. (June) 0

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