Oscar Wilde 
A House of Pomegranates 

Oscar Wilde’s ‘A House of Pomegranates’, a collection of fairy tales first published in 1891, features four stories: ‘The Young King’, ‘The Birthday of the Infanta’, ‘The Fisherman and His Soul’, and ‘The Star-Child’. In ‘The Young King’, a shepherd boy finds himself next in line to the throne and eagerly awaits his coronation. ‘The Birthday of the Infanta’ tells the tale of a hunchbacked dwarf sold to the palace for the amusement of the king’s daughter on her twelfth birthday. In ‘The Fisherman and His Soul’, a young man falls in love with a mermaid and seeks to rid himself of his soul to live with her, while ‘The Star-Child’ follows the story of an abandoned infant who grows up vain, cruel, and arrogant. Wilde’s fairy tales are not meant for children, but rather for adult readers who appreciate the darker themes and complex characters.