Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was an Irish playwright and poet famous for his wit, who also wrote some of the saddest fairy tales in the English language. His stories do not end with goodness rewarded. They end in sacrifice, and leave the reader to decide whether it was worth it.

He grew up in Dublin in a house where his father was an eye and ear surgeon and his mother published poetry as Speranza. His own fame came mostly from the theatre, and in 1895 his most performed play, The Importance of Being Earnest, opened in London.

The fairy tales fill two books. The Happy Prince and Other Tales appeared in 1888 and A House of Pomegranates in 1891. He did not write them for his own children, although he had them, and they are not stories where everything turns out well. The Happy Prince gives away the jewels from his eyes, and the nightingale pays for a single rose with her life.