Õnnelik kuningapoeg (The Happy Prince) [Collection of Tales]

Print run 2,000 copies.

Series: Eesti Kirjanduse Seltsi koolikirjanduse toimkond : Noorsoo kirjavara nr. 22 (Committee for School Literature of the Estonian Literary Society : Youth Adult Literature no. 22).

Good condition: cover shows extensive foxing and rubbing, missing minor piece of the bottom outer corner of the front cover, soft book-length vertical creaser in the centre of front cover, damaged spine; internally foxing and fingerprints throughout the book, traces of erased pen markings on the title.

First Estonian edition of the collection of stories for children "The Happy Prince and Other Tales" by Oscar Wilde first published in 1888. Like the original English edition, the current book contains five stories: "The Happy Prince", "The Nightingale and the Rose", "The Selfish Giant", "The Devoted Friend", and "The Remarkable Rocket".

Suffering, compassion, egoism, repentance, etc. – are the cross-cutting themes of all the tales included in the collection, but the central story "The Happy Prince" is rightly been considered as one of the Wilde's best allegories. It tells about the statue of a prince and a little swallow who sacrificed their lives in order to help the poor.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is one of the most eminent playwrights and short-story writers of the Anglo-Irish era. He was a distinguished poet, novelist, and critic as well. The key figure of aestheticism and European modernism. Wilde's name is also associated with a widely publicized scandal - he was sentenced to two years imprisonment for homosexuality, which in his day was a crime under gross indecency.

Estonian translation by Minni Kurs-Olesk (1879–1940) an Estonian politician and public figure.

Book's Art Nouveau cover design by Konrad Mägi (1878-1925), who was one of the first modernist painters in Estonia and the Nordic countries. Critics emphasis Mägi's extraordinary sense of colour and unique relationship with nature.