Paper covered boards, with an illustration by Hood to the front board in black, decoratively lettered in red. Ages 7-up.London: David Nutt, 1888 Illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood. Ray's characteristically rich palette and her delicate borders and backgrounds provide the visual magic that keeps this sentimental tale afloat. Though young readers may appreciate the lessons of selflessness and sacrifice here, the telling may seem to them stilted and even occasionally disjointed. Soon the sparrow dies of cold and the prince, now shabby, is removed from its pedestal and melted down. Sharing his sympathetic view with a sparrow, the prince persuades the bird to postpone its migration and instead to deliver his gold leafing, his sapphire eyes and ruby belt to those who need them. For the first time the royal sees the suffering, poverty and misery of the common people. The Happy Prince, who had lived a happy life and died a happy man, is now immortalized high above the city as a golden and bejeweled statue. Ray's (Magical Tales from Many Lands The Story of Christmas) folksy, gilt-laden artwork graces this somewhat formal abridgment of Wilde's tale about an enchanted statue. This is affirmed by God and they live forever in his city of gold and garden of paradise. These are taken up to heaven by an angel that has deemed them the two most precious things in the city.

The statue is then brought down from the pillar and melted in a furnace leaving behind the broken heart and the dead swallow and they are thrown in a dust heap. As the winter comes and the Happy Prince is stripped of all of his beauty, his lead heart breaks when the swallow dies as a result of his selfless deeds and severe cold. Viewing various scenes of people suffering in poverty from his tall monument, the Happy Prince asks the swallow to take the ruby from his hilt, the sapphires from his eyes, and the golden leaf covering his body to give to the poor. In a town where a lot of poor people suffer and where there are a lot of miseries, a swallow who was left behind after his flock flew off to Egypt for the winter, meets the statue of the late 'Happy Prince', who on reality has never experienced true sorrow, for he lived in a palace where sorrow isn't allowed to enter. It contains five stories: 'The Happy Prince', 'The Nightingale and the Rose', 'The Selfish Giant', 'The Devoted Friend', and 'The Remarkable Rocket'. The Happy Prince is a collection of stories for children by Oscar Wilde first published in May 1888.

The happy prince 1888