Stories for Children

Stories for Children is a digital collection of nine fairy tales by Oscar Wilde, first published in two volumes in 1888 and 1891. It brings together two original fairy-tale collections without their separate historical titles.

The five tales from The Happy Prince and Other Tales follow statues, birds, giants, friends, and fireworks whose claims about love or virtue are tested by what they do. “The Happy Prince” and “The Nightingale and the Rose” place acts of generosity against indifference and vanity.

The four stories from A House of Pomegranates are longer and darker. Young rulers, an Infanta, a fisherman, and a star-child confront poverty, desire, cruelty, and spiritual responsibility, with beauty tested by suffering.

Wilde combines the clear movement of oral fairy tales with decorative prose, irony, and social criticism. Children can follow their transformations and reversals, while the endings leave adults with moral choices without easy comfort.

"High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed on his sword-hilt."