This year the horns of Elfland announce a couple of fairy tales from widely differing sources. 'The King of the Golden River' (Lee & Shepard), written by John Ruskin, M.A., in 1841, with no other purpose than the amiable one of pleasing a child-friend, is illustrated with lively drawings by Richard Doyle. The theme is an old legend of Styria, and the treatment of the clear, straightforward kind that makes it easy to read aloud to very little people. Overall, the magic of Ruskin's style gleams like sunrise on mountaintop and valley. The second essay in fairy-lore is 'The Happy Prince, and Other Tales', by Oscar Wilde, illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood, and published by Roberts Brothers. The stories are gracefully and poetically phrased, after the manner of Hans Andersen; but the simplicity seems labored, and here and there a Song-of-Solomon element creeps in, which will hardly recommend the book to parents. Witness the rhapsody of the nightingale, in 'The Nightingale and the Rose'. 'Here, at last, is a true lover. His hair is as dark as the hyacinth blossom, and his lips are as red as the rose of his desire; but passion has made his face like pale ivory, and sorrow has set her seal upon fis brow'. We regret to state that a rude comment already overheard from two school-boys upon the subject of this hero stigmatizes him as a ' duffer who ought to get a kick'. It is fair to point out avein of agreeable humor in some of these tales, such as the 'Devoted Friend', wherein the Duck observes that the Water-Rat has a great many good points, but for her part she has a mother's feelings, and can never look at a confirmed bachelor without tears coming into her eyes. And the illustrations and general make-up of the little book are charming.