Momentum presents `The Art of Short Fiction', a series comprising classic short stories from around the world. These are the stories that have defined the form, withstanding changing literary fashions to move and inspire generations of readers. Unexpected, wry, tragic, bewildering, poignant, brief but vast in scope: The Art of Short Fiction collects the essential stories by the most illustrious authors of the past two centuries. The books can be collected as a library of the greats, or purchased individually. The series launches with Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince and Other Storie. In the title story, Wilde weaves a tale about a city that erects a bejewelled statue covered in gold leaf as tribute to their deceased ruler. The Happy Prince's soul inhabits this monument, high above the city; but what he observes, for the first time, is his subjects' poverty and desperation. To alleviate their misery, he enlists the help of a barn swallow to pick off the gilt covering his new form and shower riches on his people below. Wilde described this story of love and sacrifice as being `meant partly for children, and partly for those who have kept the childlike faculties of wonder and joy'. His other tales in this edition include The Selfish Giant and The Nightingale and the Rose.
