Oscar Wilde belongs to the age of awareness, complexities and dubious questionings of the late nineteenth century. Wilde
is such a writer who has excelled in all the genres of art, be it
children''s stories to his one and only novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray”, which created quite a sensation and shocked the people of his times. His plays too, full of sparkling wit, light yet capable of making a lasting impact was also quite popular.
But the one which is most recommended are the stories for children in the volume dedicated to Carlos Blacker. It is definitely great for young minds and acts as a tonic for their growth. But I also recommend it to the adult society because each of these stories written for children, with the freshness of juvenescence and the innocence of a child is laced with irony and hidden sarcasm towards the very existence of
mankind and its set values.
One of the most popular of the stories "The Happy Prince" is a unique combination of the innocence and the purity of the young world and the hypocrisy and crookedness of the adult mind. Just like Swift, Wilde has also lashed at the human world so full of animosity and selfishness and has set all this against an innocent background. If Swift’s "Gulliver’s Travels" is one of the greatest satires on mankind (Didn’t know it is a satire? it is!!) and simultaneously a great book or children with umpteen adventures and misadventures, which fire the imagination of the young .Wilde too follows the same path. In each of the stories of this volume he compels the reader to think and question those very facts which we take for granted.
Highly recommended for children and adults as well. Provides great reading material for parents to read to their children.