London: James R. Osgood, 1891. First edition. One of 1,000 copies. A Very Good+ copy, fresh and clean throughout. Publisher's pictorial tan cloth stamped in gilt. Cloth a bit faded and foxed. Gilt very bright and attractive. Dent to edge of lower board at bottom corner. Modern bookplate (D. Chisholm Simpson) and ink ownership stamp (Yew Tree Cottage) to upper endpapers. A some toning to upper free endpaper, otherwise very fresh and clean internally. Complete with the four plates illustrated by Charles Shannon, which have faded but are somewhat clearer than is usually seen.

A collection of fairytales from the famed writer, wit, and aesthete, A House of Pomegranates compiles four stories of mermaids, hunchbacks, kings, and princesses. This was actually Wilde’s second collection of fairy tales – he had been writing such stories for years – after The Happy Prince and Other Tales, published in 1888. A House of Pomegranates was met with some controversy, with many reviewers finding the stories too complex and morally ambiguous for children. Wilde clearly had more wide-ranging ambitions than the standard children's tale, however, and found it absurd that "the extremely limited vocabulary at the disposal of the British child [is] the standard by which the prose of an artist is to be judged…in building this House of Pomegranates I had about as much intention of pleasing the British child as I had of pleasing the British public." Very Good + (Item #7941)