In The Happy Prince, a richly bejewelled statue of a dead prince is inhabited by the man's noble soul; through his effigy, the prince surveys the city he once ruled, observing with despair the misery of his former subjects. Enlisting the aid of a swallow nesting on the statue, who is about to fly south just in time to escape winter, the prince hatches a plan to sustain his suffering people - with unexpected results for the little bird... Wilde described this story as intended "partly for children, and partly for those who have kept the childlike faculties of wonder and joy".
The Selfish Giant, included in this volume, also fits that description well. It tells of a giant whose notorious meanness prevents the children of the town from playing in his lavish garden - until he has a change of heart that transforms him completely.
The Nightingale and the Rose has as its protagonist another altruistic bird, the Nightingale, who is so moved by a student's lovesickness that he sets out to pay the ultimate cost to help him; Wilde certainly meant this particular fable as a satire of stiff-necked upper-class Victorian manners.
This is Book 1 in the The Art of Short Fiction Series. See all The Art of Short Fiction books here.
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Famed for his brilliant wit, Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was a prolific writer and one of the most successful playwrights of Victorian Britain, as well as a champion for the values of Aestheticism.
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