The fairy tales of Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde's two collections of children's literature, The Happy Prince and Other Stories (1888) and A House of Pomegranates (1891), have often been relegated to the margins in studies of his work. In this, the first full-length study of Wilde's fairy tales, Jarlath Killeen resituates the collections in a complex nexus of theological, political, social, and national concerns and restores the tales to their proper place in the Wilde canon Presents a study of Wilde's fairy tales for children, arguing that Wilde's stories are neither uniformly conservative nor subversive, but a blend of both. This book contends that while they should be read in relation to a literary tradition of fairy tales that emerged in nineteenth century Europe; Irish issues heavily influenced the work.