Those who recall the sensational and almost notorious career of Oscar Wilde as a lecturer in this country, or who have read his erotic poetry, some of which strove to out-Swinburne Swinburne, will hardly be prepared to find him essaying to write a juvenile, The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, But the unexpected often happens: the later Swinburne has been devoting himself to innocent if extravagant panegyrics of a child's laugh; and the maturing Wilde here proffers five little stories, gracefully written in half-rhythmical prose, free from eccentricities or objectionable utterances, and distinctly ethical and helpful throughout. In fact, it is not too much to say that no more original and attractive children's stories of the supernatural have appeared for some years than The Selfish Giant and The Happy Prince, in these pages. The conventional pictures by Walter Crane, accompanying the stories, have already been mentioned here, in a review of the art of the past holiday season; the other drawings, by Jacomb Hood, are daintier and more natural. (74x54 inches, cloth, pp. viii, 116. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Price, $1.00.)