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The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde: Summary, Analysis and Review

The Happy Prince is a short story written by Oscar Wilde. It is the story of a compassionate statue and how it falls in love with a bird which is separated from its flock.

Every now and then, I feel myself drawn to children’s books – mostly because I am drawn to children; things about them, things for them – they’re all so exciting. Adult novellas feel drab in comparison.

And it was one of those days, I happened to pick up a copy of the Happy Prince and Other Tales , a short story collection by Oscar Wilde.

The Happy Prince: Summary and Plot Analysis

Happy Prince revolves around our Happy Prince, the only catch being that our Happy prince is a statue!

When alive, our Happy Prince lived in a palace with all material comforts far removed from the reality of poor, suffering people that surrounded it.

We also have a swallow (a migratory swift-flying songbird with a forked tail and long pointed wings) in the story, who has been left behind, as the rest of the flock flew away to Egypt.

The swallow, upon finding a sweet spot in the new town on her way, settled down at the feet of the Happy Prince and is almost about to doze off when she feels rain drops over her. Curious at this occurrence, as there are no clouds in the sky, she realizes that it was tears from the Happy Prince statue.

She learns that the Happy Prince is appalled by the poverty around him and requests the swallow to take the gems from ‘his body’ (the statue) to help those in need – the sick, the lonely, the children.

The beautiful statue covered in gold leaf, first loses the ruby from the hilt, then the sapphire from its eyes and finally the golden leaves all over its body.

The swallow initially insisted on leaving to join her flock but eventually decided to stay back out of compassion as the statue was blinded after losing both the sapphires that it had for its eyes.

As her final day approached she flew over to say one final goodbye to the prince. The prince confesses her love for the swallow, they kiss and the swallow dropped dead at its feet.

Devoid of all the adornments, the statue was not a pleasant sight anymore. The mayor of the town orders the removal of the statue to erect his own in its place.

The metal from the statue is melted while the frozen and broken heart of the statue was thrown out in the heap of garbage along with the dead bird. Both of these are taken up to heaven by an Angel that considers them the two most precious things in the city.

God then decrees that they live forever in His “city of gold” and garden of Paradise.

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The Happy Prince: Review, Quotes and My Thoughts

Okay, so confessions first.

You all know that one person in the group that cries at the drop of a hat.

I bet you will get a flood of tears out of them when they read this – 

It is not Egypt that I am going. I am going to the house of death. Death is the brother of sleep. Is he not? Kissed the prince on the lips and fell down dead on his feet.

After so many selfless deeds, when the swallow saw the Prince for one last time, and the Prince unable to understand that it was her death that she was talking about – assuming she was flying away to her flock – wishes her luck, although his heart broke.

He still did that out of love. His final confession of love for the bird was simply heartbreaking, not to say that the bird dropped dead shortly after.

When I was alive and had a human heart. I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the palace of Sans-souci where sorrow is not allowed to enter.

It was remarkable how compassionate the Prince was, considering the fact that he had never seen poverty or sorrow of any kind. It’s only when he becomes a metal statue does he feel all these emotions. Ironic isn’t it?

We had a lovable inanimate object before Wall-E, my friends!

“Bring me the two most precious things in the city” said God to one of his angels; and the angel brought him the leaden heart and the dead bird.

“You have rightly chosen” said God, “for in my garden of Paradise, this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of Gold the Happy Prince shall praise me”.

And for this deceptively simple lesson in kindness and compassion –  is as appealing to an adult as it is to a kid.

You don’t have to trust me on this. So many on-screen adaptations of this story worldwide – going as far back as 1936 to as recent as 2016,are a testimony to timeless beauty of this wonderful tale of love and compassion.

What does that tell us?

Oscar Wilde’s stories age better than whiskey.

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Book review: “The Happy Prince & Other Tales” by Oscar Wilde

It’s something of a surprise to be reminded that Oscar Wilde — the author of The Picture of Dorian Gray and the subject of a scandalous 1895 trial over consensual homosexual acts — wrote stories for children.  But, then again, these aren’t your usual stories for children.

As Michele Mendelssohn notes in her sparkling introduction to the new edition of The Happy Prince & Other Tales , Wilde said the pieces were “meant partly for children, and partly for those who have kept the childlike faculties of wonder and joy.”

Like classic fables, Wilde’s five tales, originally published in 1888, use fantastic characters and settings to look at age-old questions, such as: What is love?  What is the right way to live?

Unlike those fables, however, Wilde doesn’t offer clear-cut morals.  His tales are suggestive rather than prescriptive.  They are comfortable in ambiguity.  They don’t employ a lesson to close the door on thinking but throw it wide open with questions that are likely to itch at the reader long afterwards.  Indeed, in this way, they are subversive — invitations, according to Mendelssohn, to critical thinking.

In other words, perfect for the open minds of children and for anyone else with “the childlike faculties of wonder and joy.”

“A smiling giant”

This new edition, a lavish and beautifully crafted hardcover, has been published by the famed Bodleian Library and is being distributed in the United States by University of Chicago Press.  It features 12 expressive and enigmatic watercolor illustrations by Charles Robinson from 1913.

Mendelssohn, the author of the well-received 2018 biography Making Oscar Wilde , opens her 23-page introduction with a surprisingly heartwarming scene:

Picture Oscar Wilde — imposing, sophisticated, elegantly dressed in a tailored suit — on all fours.  He is down on the nursery floor, all six feet four inches of him.  Two excited little children named Vyvyan and Cyril sit astride his back…He has put all two hundred pounds of himself at their service.  He will become any animal they wish; he roars like a lion for them, then howls like a wolf and neighs like a horse.

The two boys were his sons, and Mendelssohn reports they would remember this scene for as long as they lived.  Much later in life, Vyvyan wrote that he recalled his father as “a smiling giant” who “told us all his own written fairy stories.” He was two and his brother was three when The Happy Prince & Other Tales was published.

Playful and pointed

There is a playfulness to the five stories, averaging about 14 pages, and pointedness.  Whoever is in authority or acts as an authority comes across as a fool.  To a readership in a highly structured class society, Wilde offers stories in which the poor are quiet heroes — or, at least, can be.  They are tales that seem simple but aren’t.

Consider The Remarkable Rocket , the last story in the collection. The king’s son is getting married, and the Royal Pyrotechnist has prepared a spectacular fireworks display for the end of the wedding evening.  As they wait, the fireworks — a Roman Candle, a Catherine Wheel, a Squib and so on — are talking among themselves, anticipating their big moment.

Soon, though, the conversation is dominated by the Rocket who explains to all the others his exceptionalness:

I am a very remarkable Rocket, and come from remarkable parents.  My mother was the most celebrated Catherine Wheel of her day, and was renowned for her graceful dancing…My father was a Rocket like myself, and of French extraction.

Other thoughts may push in

For another ten pages, the Rocket bullies and badgers and brags, showing at every turn his ignorance.  He’s a type that children are familiar with.  For adults, he’s a blowhard, and critics have described him as a satire on aristocratic vanity.

So, at the end, when he lets his gunpowder get wet and he’s thrown in the mud, the reader might be tempted to look for a moral — such as keep your powder dry or don’t brag. However, as glad as the reader may be that the Rocket got what was coming to him, other thoughts may push their way in.

Such as: Isn’t it tragic that the Rocket made this mistake and could not fulfill his role in life?  Yes, the Rocket was irritating, but his vanity made him blind.  It was a personality weakness.  Was the Rocket a victim of his flaw? Should he be pitied?

And, beyond that, think about the characters in this story.  They are all fireworks.  They live in order to explode for the entertainment of others.  Is this a commentary by Wilde on the human experience?  

“Timeless existential problems”

Or consider the first story in the collection, The Happy Prince .

The Happy Prince is a statue, high above the city, “gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold,” with two bright sapphires for eyes and a large red ruby, glowing on his sword-hilt. A swallow, left behind by the others who have fled south for the winter, decides to make “a golden bedroom” between the statue’s feet.

But the swallow discovers that the Happy Prince is crying because, from his height, “I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city.”  Soon, the two are working together to help the city’s poor. 

On orders from the Happy Prince, the swallow pries the ruby out of the sword-hilt and takes it to the mother of a sick boy.  And, on the following nights, he takes each of the sapphires to other suffering people, and then he strips each gold leaf off the Happy Prince and takes them to others who are needy.

And, then, exhausted, the swallow kisses the now-undecorated statue and falls dead at his feet. And the leaders of the city decide the statue looks ugly, “little better than a beggar,” so they pull it down and melt it in a furnace: “As he is no longer beautiful, he is no longer useful.”

Questions remain

The swallow and the Happy Prince end up in heaven, and you could say the moral of the story is that you should do good works.  Which, of course, is true.  But questions remain.

What about all those city leaders who only see the statue as having value if it is pretty?  Does the story indicate that their attitude toward the statue is the same they have toward the poor and needy?  That the poor and the needy have no value if they aren’t useful?

And, if the right thing to do is to do good works, why are there so many poor and needy people?  Why aren’t the city leaders doing good similar works?

And what does it say about the city that the two who are doing good works — the swallow and the Happy Prince — die in the effort?  And why do they seem so alone in trying to help the needy?

Wilde’s stories, Mendelssohn writes, “address timeless existential problems…[and] go to the heart of the human experience.”

They are far from simple, rich in complexity. And Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince & Other Tales is a good book to be reading today.

Patrick T. Reardon

This review originally appeared at Third Coast Review on 8.24.23.

Written by : Patrick T. Reardon

For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.

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Oscar Wilde online

The happy prince.

by Oscar Wilde

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.

He was very much admired indeed. “He is as beautiful as a weathercock,” remarked one of the Town Councillors who wished to gain a reputation for having artistic tastes; “only not quite so useful,” he added, fearing lest people should think him unpractical, which he really was not.

“Why can’t you be like the Happy Prince?” asked a sensible mother of her little boy who was crying for the moon. “The Happy Prince never dreams of crying for anything.”

“I am glad there is some one in the world who is quite happy,” muttered a disappointed man as he gazed at the wonderful statue.

“He looks just like an angel,” said the Charity Children as they came out of the cathedral in their bright scarlet cloaks and their clean white pinafores.

“How do you know?” said the Mathematical Master, “you have never seen one.”

“Ah! but we have, in our dreams,” answered the children; and the Mathematical Master frowned and looked very severe, for he did not approve of children dreaming.

One night there flew over the city a little Swallow. His friends had gone away to Egypt six weeks before, but he had stayed behind, for he was in love with the most beautiful Reed. He had met her early in the spring as he was flying down the river after a big yellow moth, and had been so attracted by her slender waist that he had stopped to talk to her.

“Shall I love you?” said the Swallow, who liked to come to the point at once, and the Reed made him a low bow. So he flew round and round her, touching the water with his wings, and making silver ripples. This was his courtship, and it lasted all through the summer.

“It is a ridiculous attachment,” twittered the other Swallows; “she has no money, and far too many relations”; and indeed the river was quite full of Reeds. Then, when the autumn came they all flew away.

After they had gone he felt lonely, and began to tire of his lady-love. “She has no conversation,” he said, “and I am afraid that she is a coquette, for she is always flirting with the wind.” And certainly, whenever the wind blew, the Reed made the most graceful curtseys. “I admit that she is domestic,” he continued, “but I love travelling, and my wife, consequently, should love travelling also.”

“Will you come away with me?” he said finally to her; but the Reed shook her head, she was so attached to her home.

“You have been trifling with me,” he cried. “I am off to the Pyramids. Good-bye!” and he flew away.

All day long he flew, and at night-time he arrived at the city. “Where shall I put up?” he said; “I hope the town has made preparations.”

Then he saw the statue on the tall column.

“I will put up there,” he cried; “it is a fine position, with plenty of fresh air.” So he alighted just between the feet of the Happy Prince.

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The Happy Prince

Oscar wilde.

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A Swallow delays his trip to Egypt for the winter because he falls in love with a Reed —upon giving up that romance, he flies past a town where he happens to settle on a pedestal underneath a gilded statue. This statue, the Happy Prince , speaks to the Swallow about all of the poverty and suffering—especially the suffering of children —that he sees in the town from his high perch. He begs the Swallow to assist him in relieving some of that suffering by delivering the valuables from his person to those in need.

First, the Swallow delivers the ruby from the Happy Prince’s sword-hilt to a seamstress struggling to feed her sick son. One of the statue’s sapphire eyes goes to a playwright freezing in his garret, and the other to a young match-girl whose father would beat her if she came home empty-handed. As the Sparrow has come to love the Happy Prince, he opts to remain by his side after the loss of his eyes makes him blind, and tells him stories of Egypt to keep his world vibrant as the winter gets colder.

Ultimately, the winter grows too cold and the Sparrow realizes that death is looming—he confesses his love to the Happy Prince and the two exchange a kiss. The Sparrow perishes and the Happy Prince’s lead heart cracks.

Later, the Mayor and Town Councillors walk by the statue. Disturbed by its shabbiness, they decide to have it melted and remade. Since the lead heart won’t melt, however, it gets tossed on a dust-heap with the Sparrow’s body. God asks one of his angels to deliver the two most precious things in the city, which turn out to be the corpse and the broken heart. He promises an eternity in Paradise in exchange for the brave sacrifices of the Prince and the Sparrow.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › British Literature › Analysis of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince

Analysis of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on September 21, 2022

Arguably the most popular of Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales, “The Happy Prince” is the first story in The Happy Prince and Other Tales , which was published in 1888. The narrative, which has been favorably compared to the work of Hans Christian Andersen and Andrew Lang, tells of the transformation of a swallow and a young prince.

The story begins with the swallow’s decision to leave his earthbound wife, a reed, to join his fellow birds in Egypt. Having waited in the hope that his wife would accompany him, the bird migrates alone. After a day’s flight, he seeks shelter from the elements beneath the bejeweled statue of a young man and falls asleep. Falling water awakens the swallow, who finds that the annoying moisture is not rain but teardrops from the statue’s sapphire eyes. The beautiful prince explains that he grew up removed from ordinary concerns in the palace of Sans Souci and knew only human happiness; however, since he was now outside that cultivated environment, he saw the grief of the people he had ruled and wept for their sorrows, despite having a leaden heart.

The swallow becomes, reluctantly, the prince’s messenger. The bird takes the rubies that adorn the prince’s sword to a seamstress whose son is ill, delivers the prince’s sapphire eyes to a poet starving in a garret, and gives the gold leaf that covers the statue to the poor of the city. Eventually, however, the bird dies in the cold, and the statue of the prince grows shabby. The mayor tears down the statue and has it melted for a new monument. As the mayor and the town councillors squabble over which of them deserves the honor, a workman notices that the leaden heart has not melted and discards it. An angel from heaven finds the dead bird and the rejected heart to be the most valuable items in the city, and God grants the bird and the prince eternal life in the garden of paradise.

The fairy tale, whose moralism seems antithetical to Wilde’s aesthetic, is consistent with Wilde’s sense of art. The genre, which may seem as simple as the lines of an Oriental drawing, has additionally a self-contained beauty: complete in itself and internally balanced. Paradoxically, the form presents truth without a slavish imitation of real life.

Short narrative, and the fairy story in particular, seem well suited to Wilde’s talent as a raconteur: These forms are compact and to the point, and they can blend sheer delight with surprising depth. Some critics, however, see Wilde’s success as a teller of fairy tales (whatever their appeal to an adult audience) as a symptom of his emotional immaturity. Another view might be that Wilde was playing with his audience in presenting a serious message for adults in a seemingly frivolous form for children.

Paradox is an important element in “The Happy Prince.” Although the statue has a heart of lead, it is purer than the gold leaf that clothes the body of the statue, and the prince’s artificial heart is more sympathetic than the human hearts within the presumably democratic leaders of the town. The metal heart is closer to the biblical heart of fl esh than the living prince’s heart was. The prince has a greater beauty after stripping himself of his outward attractions; the nobility of his soul is greater than that of his blood. The allegedly democratic rulers of the town, the mayor and the council, lack that inherent nobility of action and show less concern for the poor than does the aristocratic prince. Finally, the two most precious items in the city are on a dust heap; they seem to the inhabitants to be useless now that they have been used to improve the lot of the poor. All the good the prince and the swallow have done seems to have been for nothing, but it earns them a great reward.

Christian commentators on the story have seen the prince as a Christ figure who empties himself as a sacrifice for others. These critics also see “The Happy Prince” as a fable of a transformation from selfish interest to agape, the highest form of love. The prince has been aware only of aesthetic beauty; the bird cares only for himself. The sight of the unfortunate brings them to express a generalized love for humanity fully and unselfishly. Like Christ, the prince ultimately dies for his people.

Some have seen in this story a blend of Pater’s valuation of ancient Greek ideals with Christian principles. The emphasis on physical beauty comes from Pater’s thought, while the later emphasis on spiritual beauty comes from Christianity. Other recent commentators have focused on the elements of the story that seem to express Wilde’s sexual preference, and some look at the tale as a coded coming out. The fact that the swallow leaves his wife and keeps the company of a handsome young man has received emphasis and attention, as has the fact that none of the marriages in The Happy Prince and Other Tales produce offspring. Queer theorists see childless marriages in literature as a way of masking homosexual union, and other scholars have seen in the friendship between the prince and the swallow a veiled but unmistakable indication of sexual preference. They class this story with other Victorian literature in which strong same-sex friendship is a cover for homosexual love. The emphasis on the aesthetic beauty of the prince’s statue and the growing sensitivity of the prince are also seen as peculiarly homosexual concerns. Those who draw on Wilde’s biography note that he once remarked that his fairy stories were not just for children but also for a particular kind of adult, one who presumably could break the code.

Wilde himself, however, argued that life imitates art, rather than the reverse, and he saw in this tale a prefiguring of his transformation from the carefree, possibly careless, celebrity to the wiser and more compassionate man who emerged from Reading Gaol.

Analysis of Oscar Wilde’s Plays

BIBLIOGRAPHY Duffy, John-Charles. “Gay-Related Themes in Wilde’s Fairy Tales,” Victorian Literature and Culture 29 (2001): 327–349. Knight, G. Wilson. “Christ and Wilde.” In Oscar Wilde: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Richard Ellman, 138–149. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1969. Martin, Robert K. “Oscar Wilde and the Fairy Tale: ‘The Happy Prince’ as Self-Dramatization,” Studies in Short Fiction 16 (1979): 74–77. Wilde, Oscar. Complete Shorter Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.

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THE HAPPY PRINCE

A tale by oscar wilde.

by Oscar Wilde ; adapted by Maisie Paradise Shearring ; illustrated by Maisie Paradise Shearring ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 2017

The important themes of charity and love come through strongly in this thoughtfully and playfully illustrated but plainly...

A well-known literary fairy tale about compassion, adapted and with new illustrations.

The Swallow’s lyrical speeches have been removed, leaving the basic outline of the story of a gold statue, the titular Happy Prince. As a living ruler, he admits that “I didn’t care what happened to my people.” Now concerned with his citizens, the gold statue asks the kind Swallow (pictured with a white, human face) to stay in the city instead of migrating to Egypt to escape the cold. The Happy Prince wants the Swallow to give his sword’s ruby to a brown-skinned seamstress so she can purchase “food and medicine for her poor son.” He asks the Swallow to carry his sapphire eye to a young, white writer who needs firewood and finally to take his other sapphire eye to a suffering, white match-girl. The Swallow selflessly declares that he cannot leave the blind Prince. Other charitable acts follow as the Swallow gives away the Prince’s gold leaf exterior, but the bird finally dies from the cold and the Mayor orders the now “shabby” statue to be destroyed. As a fit ending for the two true friends, one of God’s angels brings them to a Rousseau-like “garden of Paradise, together.” The bold, expressive, mixed-media illustrations have a childlike look and idiosyncratically include Egyptian palm trees and camels in the northern city. The detailed, busy, often humorous images are best appreciated one-on-one.

Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-500-65111-7

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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LITTLE DAYMOND LEARNS TO EARN

by Daymond John ; illustrated by Nicole Miles ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2023

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.

How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!

John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Pub Date: March 21, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

HORRIBLE HARRY SAYS GOODBYE

From the horrible harry series , vol. 37.

by Suzy Kline ; illustrated by Amy Wummer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 27, 2018

A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode.

A long-running series reaches its closing chapters.

Having, as Kline notes in her warm valedictory acknowledgements, taken 30 years to get through second and third grade, Harry Spooger is overdue to move on—but not just into fourth grade, it turns out, as his family is moving to another town as soon as the school year ends. The news leaves his best friend, narrator “Dougo,” devastated…particularly as Harry doesn’t seem all that fussed about it. With series fans in mind, the author takes Harry through a sort of last-day-of-school farewell tour. From his desk he pulls a burned hot dog and other items that featured in past episodes, says goodbye to Song Lee and other classmates, and even (for the first time ever) leads Doug and readers into his house and memento-strewn room for further reminiscing. Of course, Harry isn’t as blasé about the move as he pretends, and eyes aren’t exactly dry when he departs. But hardly is he out of sight before Doug is meeting Mohammad, a new neighbor from Syria who (along with further diversifying a cast that began as mostly white but has become increasingly multiethnic over the years) will also be starting fourth grade at summer’s end, and planning a written account of his “horrible” buddy’s exploits. Finished illustrations not seen.

Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-451-47963-1

Page Count: 80

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018

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The Happy Prince: A Tale by Oscar Wilde – Book Review

Illustrated and Adapted by Maisie Paradise Shearring

Published by Thames & Hudson ISBN: 978-0-500-65111-7

Reviewed by Karl Andy Foster

On the cover of this hardcover book is the Prince of the title. He stands atop a column overlooking his city. His left arm stretches outwards to lead the eye to the book title. This new version of the popular story has been given several visual twists. Chiefly the Swallow is anthropomorphised to help us to feel his emotions more deeply. There is a kind of magic realism within the images as we are transported through time and space, and across a cold and unfeeling city.

The tale is adapted from a short story by Oscar Wilde. Shearring’s text is spare and moves the story along efficiently, whereas in Wilde’s original text he gives greater dimension to the psychology of the Prince and the Swallow. Wilde emphasises the love story, while this book condenses the narrative down to the essential motivations of the two protagonists.

This award winning picture book is illustrated from the point of view of the Swallow and the Prince. They are up on high and see the objective truths that the people on the ground are too ‘blind’ to see. Even after the Prince has his sapphire eyes removed by the Swallow, in an act of kindness, his vision remains clear.

The book is printed on uncoated paper so the inks appear subtler allowing a good sense of space and place. Shearring’s illustrations are very stylised and use a palette not often employed in picture books, broad strokes and fields of grey or brown. The drawing is bold, direct and some of the mark making naïve in character. Her work is reminiscent of the trend for bold and confident illustrations in publishing. It brings to mind output by Laura Carlin, William Goldsmith and the NoBrow Press.

It’s a beautiful story and the illustrations draw us into the benighted world seen through the eyes of the Prince and his companion. They are locked in a struggle that brings them closer together as they discover they are prepared to die for each other. The final transformation image as they arrive in paradise is a nod to an inclusivity that Wilde could only dream of.

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Book review: the happy prince by oscar wilde.

Wonderful 👍

The Happy Prince

In 1885, Oscar Wilde wrote in a letter to his friend James Whistler, “Be warned in time, James; and remain, as I do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood.” Wilde could not have known how tragically true those words would be a mere decade later. After his highly publicized trial in 1895, Wilde was convicted of “gross indecency” and sentenced to two years’ hard labor. Most of his friends deserted him. Upon his release in 1897, his health ruined, he went into exile in France and died  three years later , nearly friendless and destitute. He was only 46 years old. (Wilde was posthumously pardoned—along with 50,000 other men—in 2017.) “The Happy Prince,” written, directed, and starring Rupert Everett , tells of Wilde’s final 3 years, his isolation, his health issues, his increasing despondence. This is Everett’s first film as a director, and there are times when it shows. But what he brings to the table—as a director, writer, and actor—is his intuitive “take” on Oscar Wilde and the performance alone makes this riveting and revelatory viewing. 

In an early scene, Wilde lounges in a grubby Parisian bed, staring with post-coital appreciation at the naked teenage prostitute standing by the window. Wilde moans, almost rapturously, “Our purple hours are sullied by green notes.” The boy smiles over at Wilde, accepting the older man’s gaze without judgment. Everett’s tone is partly regretful about the “green notes” and the “sullying”, but there’s a sharp note of relish in it, too. Maybe “purple hours” are best when backgrounded by squalor. It’s an extraordinarily textured moment, one of many in the film: it opens up its mysteries the longer you think about it. 

“The Happy Prince” ricochets around in time and styles. There are moments when it’s hard to tell where you are in the timeline. Is it a flashback? Is this London or Paris? There are static scenes of almost painterly beauty (John Conroy’s cinematography deserves much credit), but then there are handheld-camera sequences where you can barely tell what is going on. The framing device of Wilde telling his sons a bedtime story isn’t used consistently enough and you keep losing the thread of the story being told. 

What is essential, though, are the emotional insights about Wilde which Everett brings to the table. Everett knows his Wilde very well. He was wonderfully bitchy as Lord Alfred Goring in 1999’s “ An Ideal Husband ” (where he spoke Wilde’s dialogue effortlessly, not an easy feat), and he also played Wilde in the 2012 revival of David Hare’s play The Judas Kiss  (for which he was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor). He brings all of that experience to bear in “The Happy Prince.” When the film opens, Wilde is already ruined, skulking through the alleys of Paris’ underworld, running up huge bar tabs which he can’t pay. He looks completely unwell, bloated and sweaty, cheeks smeared with rouge.  His eyes are haunted, flitting around looking for somewhere safe to land. He is rescued by two of the only people who remained loyal to him after his fall, Robbie Ross ( Edwin Thomas ), executor of Wilde’s estate, and Reggie Turner ( Colin Firth ), a holdover from Wilde’s “aesthete” crowd. The two men set him up with lodgings in France, give him money, and do damage control when necessary (it is often necessary). 

Wilde tries for a reconciliation with his wife Constance ( Emily Watson ). He misses his sons (the film opens with Wilde, resplendent in a red velvet suit, telling the two sleepy boys a bedtime story). Whatever Constance’s humiliations as a wife might be, Wilde was a good and loving father, and Watson—in her few scenes—conveys that unbearable tension. But it’s too late to go back, really, and so—ignoring the outraged cries of Robbie and Reggie—Wilde starts up again with Alfred “Bosie” Douglas ( Colin Morgan ), the young man who brought about Wilde’s ruination in 1895. The story of Lord Alfred Douglas and his wretched father, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry, could fill a 2-season television series, but suffice it to say that “Bosie” egging Wilde on to sue the Marquess for libel doesn’t exactly reek of “the love that dare not speak its name” but “What a perfect way to stick it to dear old Dad.” Everett’s script does not soft pedal this, nor does it romanticize the affair. Morgan, looking like a Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting come to life. is perfectly cast as Bosie.  You take one look at him, at the icy look in his blue eyes beneath his blonde curls, and you want to tell Wilde to run as fast as he can in the other direction.

But Wilde didn’t run. Or he did, but he ran towards Bosie, and Everett shows us why. This understanding is key to the film’s often excruciating power. Everett brings to the performance his knowledge of how the centuries-long closet formed gay male companionship and love, how language was filled with supersonic signals for its intended audience, something Wilde himself brought to its pinnacle in his plays, stories and epigrams. As Wilde gets sucked back into Bosie’s melodrama, having orgies in a rat-infested mansion in Italy, you feel the ship sailing—Wilde’s ship—towards the rocks. The young party boys will drop him the second he runs out of money, just like most of his friends dropped him after the trial. 

While in prison, Wilde wrote an extraordinary and now famous letter to Bosie, called “De Profundis.” 20 pages long, it’s difficult reading because Wilde’s anguish is so palpable. At one point, he shares with Bosie: 

“For the first year of my imprisonment I did nothing else, and can remember doing nothing else, but wring my hands in impotent despair, and say, ‘What an ending, what an appalling ending!’ Now I try to say to myself, and sometimes when I am not torturing myself do really and sincerely say, ‘What a beginning, what a wonderful beginning!’ It may really be so. It may become so.” 

Tragically, it wouldn’t. Wilde’s release was not a “wonderful beginning.” It was the beginning of the end. Clunky structure and awkward scene transitions aside, “The Happy Prince” swims around in a charged space where despair and hope exist simultaneously. The two may even be synonymous. This is due almost entirely to Everett’s performance of a devastated man, plagued by guilt and self-loathing, cavorting with naked Italian boys, haunted by visions of Constance and his lost sons, his literary life—his whole life—over. Everett’s approach is unblinking. “The Happy Prince” is painful to watch, but filled with insight, complexity and understanding. 

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O’Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master’s in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

• Edwin Thomas as Robbie Ross
• Tom Wilkinson as Fr Dunne
• Rupert Everett as Oscar Wilde
• Colin Firth as Reggie Turner
• John Standing as Dr. Tucker
• Emily Watson as Constance
• Colin Morgan as Alfred Bosie Douglas
• Gabriel Yared

Cinematographer

• John Conroy
• Nicolas Gaster
• Rupert Everett

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July 13, 2017

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The Happy Prince: A Tale by Oscar Wilde Hardcover – Picture Book, September 5, 2017

A beautifully illustrated retelling of Oscar Wilde’s classic story

Originally published by Oscar Wilde in 1888, The Happy Prince is the much- loved story of a gilded statue, a kind- hearted Swallow, and generosity of spirit. A Swallow bound for Egypt takes refuge at the feet of a golden statue of a prince erected in a European town, agreeing to bring pieces of the statue to less fortunate city dwellers at the request of the prince himself.

Illustrator Maisie Paradise Shearring offers a lively take on this well- known tale, creating each scene in whimsical detail. This fresh perspective appeals to a new generation of children, while imparting an important life lesson at the same time.

• Reading age 7 - 10 years
• Print length 48 pages
• Language English
• Grade level Kindergarten - 5
• Dimensions 10 x 0.5 x 11.4 inches
• Publisher Thames & Hudson
• Publication date September 5, 2017
• ISBN-10 0500651116
• ISBN-13 978-0500651117
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

From school library journal, about the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Thames & Hudson; Illustrated edition (September 5, 2017)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 48 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0500651116
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0500651117
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 7 - 10 years
• Grade level ‏ : ‎ Kindergarten - 5
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.2 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 10 x 0.5 x 11.4 inches
• #3,629 in Children's Bird Books (Books)
• #10,817 in Children's Classics
• #16,592 in Children's Folk Tales & Myths (Books)

About the authors

Oscar wilde.

Oscar Fingall O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and Magdalen College, Oxford where, a disciple of Pater, he founded an aesthetic cult. In 1884 he married Constance Lloyd, and his two sons were born in 1885 and 1886.

His novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and social comedies Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), established his reputation. In 1895, following his libel action against the Marquess of Queesberry, Wilde was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for homosexual conduct, as a result of which he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898), and his confessional letter De Profundis (1905). On his release from prison in 1897 he lived in obscurity in Europe, and died in Paris in 1900.

Maisie Paradise Shearring

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Prince Harry can’t be happy that his own BROTHER is poaching his pals… it proves where loyalties really lie, expert says

• Ethan Singh , News Reporter
• Published : 17:30, 3 Sep 2024
• Updated : 17:33, 3 Sep 2024
• Published : Invalid Date,

PRINCE Harry may be feeling "jealous" of Prince William after his brother poached his pals, a royal expert has claimed.

The Prince of Wales has taken on Harry and Meghan's "dear friend" Jose Andres, 55, as one of the newest members of William's Earthshot Prize Council.

The chef and humanitarian has been pals with  Meghan  and Harry for the past four-and-a-half years receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars of grants from Archewell for his flagship project World Central Kitchen (WCK).

But he is now working with William and leading his £50million global eco-project after being poached from the Sussexes.

The two warring brothers are still embroiled in a bitter years-long feud which shows no signs of ending.

And royal expert Phil Dampier believes that Prince Harry may well be "jealous" after William's latest move.

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Speaking exclusively to The Sun he said: "I'm sure that Harry is probably a little bit jealous that it looks like William's poached one of his top people.

"I think there will be a little bit of resentment.

"As I say, we don't know whether they've had a falling out, it could well be that Jose has managed to stay friends with with both parties, he's a great guy doing great work.

"But I wouldn't be surprised if Harry's a bit jealous as some other people have already been put in a difficult position between the two."

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Growing up, Wills and Harry shared many of the same friends who were part of their close, tight-knit circle.

But they've have limited contact with each other since  Megxit , when Harry and wife  Meghan quit royal duties  for a new life in the States.

The royal brothers have moved in different circles for some time now as relations show no sign of defrosting.

Dampier suggested that people, including celebrities, are slowly edging more towards William and Kate despite being close to Harry in the past.

And he claims that Jose's actions could be the latest example of this trend.

The royal expert said: "We don't know whether this means that Jose has fallen out with Harry and Meghan, it's possible.

"In the normal scheme of things it would be a good thing if he was still friends with both.

"But I think it kind of fits a pattern that we're starting to see some people who are starting to sort of edge away from from Harry and Meghan, and get back more in contact with with William and Kate, and indeed the King.

"I mean other people who come to mind are the Beckham's who went to Harry and Meghan's wedding, but they apparently seem to have fallen out with them.

"We don't seem to see so much of people like the Clooneys' and Elton John with Harry and Meghan anymore.

"So it does make you wonder whether or not Jose is one of the latest sort of celebrities who has realised that possibly Harry and Meghan's star has waned a bit, and they're better off working with the conventional royals."

The Sussexes representatives have been contacted for comment.

As Harry's circle gets smaller, it comes after news that Harry is increasingly dissatisfied with life in  California .

Pals claim he feels he has lost his way and dislikes being overshadowed by Meghan in public.

And in shock claims, he is said to be seeking guidance on a return to Britain — and to the  Royal Family .

But reconnecting will be easier said then done with relationships with William and Charles especially strained.

FROSTY RELATIONSHIPS

Last week, William and Harry "kept their distance" at their uncle's funeral as they saw each other for the first time since King Charles' coronation .

The estranged brothers “discreetly” attended the service on Wednesday for  Lord Robert Fellowes , who was their mother  Diana’s  brother-in-law, but sat separately.

The feuding brothers are understood not to have spoken since the  Queen’s funeral  two years ago, when they “barely exchanged a word”, Harry wrote in Spare.

And, Harry visited the UK to mark the 10th anniversary of his Invictus Games in May this year - but declined to meet up with either  King Charles  or his older brother.

Their relationship took another sour turn after the duke lobbed  vile allegations against the Prince of Wales  in his memoir Spare.

Tensions may be reignited as a paperback version of the explosive book is set to  hit shelves in October.

Royal experts claimed its release could  "dredge everything up again"  and the "timing couldn't be worse".

A timeline of Prince Harry and William's 'feud': Brothers 'at war'

In 2018, the Sun told how  "simmering tension" began when William questioned the speed of Harry and Meghan's engagement .

The first hints of friction reportedly came after William was introduced to Meghan when she was staying at Kensington Palace.

Once she'd returned home to Canada, William and Harry sat down for a brother-to-brother chat.

He knew Harry was already head-over-heels for her but it has been claimed he advised him to take it slowly.

The younger prince reportedly didn't take too kindly to the advice, with one royal source saying he "went mental".

Then in June 2019 Harry and Meghan officially  split off from the charity they shared with William and Kate .

The Royal Foundation will be divided between the Sussexes and Cambridges as the couples focus on their own separate charitable endeavours.

Prince William and Prince Harry first established the Royal Foundation in 2009 before  Kate  joined two years later shortly after their engagement was announced.

The trio would often appear together at events and the Foundation had huge successes with projects like the  Invictus Games  for injured veterans and the mental health Heads Together campaign.

The Royal Foundation said the decision was made following the conclusion of a review into its structure - but added both couples will continue to work together in the future.

Harry and Meg were living in close proximity to Kate and Wills within the Kensington Palace estate, but they switched to  Frogmore Cottage  in Windsor before baby  Archie  was born.

The move further increased rumours of a fallout.

Harry, 39, also hinted in his  ITV documentary  "Harry and Meghan, An African Journey" that he and his brother had grown apart.

It came after  Prince Philip called Meghan the "D.O.W"  after the Duchess of Windsor — the American divorcee who led Edward VIII to abdicate.

And he warned the late Queen to be "cautious" of Harry's then bride-to-be, a royal author claims.

Ingrid Seward revealed in new book My Mother And I that  Prince Philip  felt it was "uncanny...how much Meghan reminded him of the  Duchess of Windsor ".

In 2021, Harry and Meghan give their  bombshell interview with Oprah  Winfrey where Harry accused his dad of cutting him off financially.

Harry then jetted back to UK to join William in unveiling a statue to their mother Princess Diana in the grounds of Kensington Palace.

But sources claimed William didn’t want to attend the memorial amid their ongoing rift.

In 2022, just before their grandmother the Queen died, sources claimed Kate  acts as a "peacemaker" between the brothers.

Last year  Harry claimed his brother "knocked him to the floor"  during an argument about Meghan.

In his  book Spare , Harry said William branded Meghan "rude" and "difficult" during a row.

Harry alleged William "grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and … knocked me to the floor".

He said he was left with a visible injury to his back following the argument in 2019 at Nottingham Cottage on the grounds of  Kensington Palace , where he was living at the time.

In January this year,  Harry flew in to be with Charles  after the monarch's shock cancer diagnosis.

Harry flew back to the US the following day - without seeing Wills. 

Spare was originally published in 2023 and launched vile attacks on the Royal Family.

Harry cruelly  alleged Prince William knocked him to the floor  and ripped his necklace after heated words about Meghan.

And, during interviews to garner more publicity, the duke  unleashed a litany of more digs  at his now estranged family.

The bitter feud was ignited with full force when the Sussexes told Oprah, in their  2021 sit down interview , that certain members of the Royal Family had speculated about Prince Archie's skin colour.

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It was later claimed the royals were Princess Kate and King Charles, after Harry and Meghan's former pal  Omid Scobie  published his  hatchet-job book Endgame.

Prince William and Harry's bond then worsened after the Sussexes made a number of accusations against the  Royal Family  in their 2022  Netflix  docuseries.

• Camilla Parker Bowles
• Kate Middleton
• King Charles
• Meghan Markle
• Prince Archie
• Prince Harry
• Prince Philip
• Prince William
• Princess Anne
• Princess Charlotte
• Princess Diana
• Queen Elizabeth II