by Oscar Wilde – reviewd by Cirec Aguiar
For the ones who still cry rivers at the right stories The Happy Prince and Other Tales is a collection of luminous sorrow, piercing beauty, and moral depth, all wrapped in fable-like simplicity.
Oscar Wilde is often remembered for his sharp wit, flamboyant brilliance, and tragic downfall—but in The Happy Prince and Other Tales, he steps into another light entirely: that of a father writing with aching tenderness for his children. These tales, first published in 1888, are filled with beauty, compassion, and quiet sorrow—the kind of sorrow that matures into wisdom only when spoken gently.
The title story, The Happy Prince, tells of a jewel-studded statue and a small swallow who help people experiencing poverty in a suffering city. What begins as a whimsical tale of talking birds and weeping statues becomes an unforgettable meditation on sacrifice, love, and what it means to live for others. Behind his Victorian eloquence, Wilde speaks the language of the soul here, and the final pages, where love triumphs in silence, are enough to move even the most reserved heart to tears.
Other stories in the collection—The Nightingale and the Rose, The Selfish Giant, The Devoted Friend, and The Remarkable Rocket—reveal Wilde’s range. Some are tragic, some satirical, others moral in the simplest sense. The Selfish Giant, for instance, is a quiet allegory of redemption; The Devoted Friend satirizes self-serving kindness; The Nightingale and the Rose remains one of the most devastating short allegories ever written about love’s blindness.
What’s most moving is that Wilde didn’t write these tales to impress critics—he wrote them out of a deep, childlike love. He once told his children, “I see them not as they are now, but as they will be in twenty years.” These stories carry that gaze—hopeful, sad, visionary. Though they were penned for children, they were meant for anyone who still listens with a soft heart.
Final Reflection
In a world growing louder and more complex, Wilde’s fairy tales still whisper something essential: that kindness matters, that sacrifice is sacred, and that beauty without compassion is hollow.
“Bring me the two most precious things in the city,” God says in The Happy Prince, “and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.”
These are the treasures Wilde leaves us with: the kind that can’t be measured, only felt.