A House of Pomegranates

Four fairy tales for older readers: a young king who learns what his robes cost, an infanta whose birthday gift is a dwarf, a fisherman who sends his soul away, and a child who is a star. Wilde published them in 1891 and said he had had no more intention of pleasing the British child than of pleasing the British public. They are far crueller than his first collection, and each turns on a beautiful thing discovering what it has done. Forty-seven plates of castles and ruins, from Burne-Jones to Bonavia, echo the crumbling kingdoms and costly splendours of these four tales.