The Happy Prince, and Other Tales

Five tales in which giving is the whole action: a gilded statue strips himself to feed the poor, a nightingale presses a thorn to her breast for a rose no one wants, a selfish giant learns whose the garden is, a rich miller talks beautifully about friendship while he uses little Hans to the last, and a rocket talks of nothing but himself. Wilde published them in 1888 and said they were meant partly for children and partly for those who have kept the childlike faculties of wonder and joy. The book closes with The Canterville Ghost, Wilde's comic story of 1887, in which an American minister buys a haunted English house and the ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville finds three centuries of practice no match for a family that believes in stain remover. Thirty-six plates from painters including John Atkinson Grimshaw and Alfred Sisley follow the tales through moonlit streets, water and woodland, matching Wilde's blend of wonder and the world.