Books

1888. First Edition. WILDE, Oscar. The Happy Prince and Other Tales. Illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacob Hood. London: David Nutt, 1888. Quarto, original full Japan vellum over beveled boards, uncut. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. $48,500.Large-paper limited first edition, number 21 of only 75 copies on handmade paper, signed by Oscar Wilde and the publisher David Nutt. Extraordinarily rare.""Wilde's reputation as an author dated from the publication of The Happy Prince and Other Tales… He presents the stories like sacraments of a lost faith… Their occasional social satire is subordinated to a sadness unusual in fairy tales"" (Ellmann, 299). Wilde wrote these tales for his own children. He told Richard La Gallienne that ""It is the duty of every father… to write fairy tales for his children."" His children later wrote of their father's ""never-ending supply"" of fairy tales and tales of adventure, which he often told them to calm them down. Many of…

The Happy Prince and Other Tales is a collection of five stories that teach profound life lessons through fantasy narrative. Oscar Wilde uses poignant and whimsical storytelling to touch on themes of selflessness, compassion, and love.