Andersen Press snaps up 'glorious' reimagining of Wilde's The Happy Prince from Woodgate

Andersen Press has snapped up a “glorious” reimagining of Oscar Wilde’s classic fairytale The Happy Prince by British Book Award and Waterstones Children’s Book Prize winner Harry Woodgate. 

World rights were secured by Eloise Wilson, commissioning editor, from Alice Sutherland-Hawes of ASH Literary. It will publish in hardback in June 2024.  

Woodgate’s The Happy Prince follows Swallow, a homeless boy who’s just arrived in the big city. “He settles down for the night under the golden and bejewelled statue of the Happy Prince, yet when he looks up he sees the statue is weeping. What could a golden Happy Prince possibly have to feel sad about?” the publisher teased.  

“But from his view high above the city, the prince can see the suffering of the poor. He asks little Swallow to take his jewels and gold to the people who need them most. Can the statue and the boy find a way to bring happiness to everyone in the city?” 

Wilson said: “It was a delight to work with the hugely talented Harry Woodgate on their astonishing adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince. Harry has reignited this classic story with their creative ideas and their vibrant and breathtakingly beautiful illustrations.” 

Andersen will launch the book with a “major” campaign with festival and event appearances from Woodgate lined up across the country, and Wilde’s home city of Dublin.  

Woodgate said: “Working on this illustrated adaptation of The Happy Prince with Eloise, Jack and the rest of the Andersen team has been a joy, and I feel very grateful for their collaboration and creativity which not only made this project so enjoyable to work on but also helped me extend my illustrative practice in a direction I hadn’t been able to before. 

“There is something vital and enduring about Oscar Wilde’s writing, and especially The Happy Prince: it’s a tale which speaks as keenly now as it did on first publication 136 years ago—about kindness and community, about wealth inequality, about monuments and who gets to make them—and that makes it a really exciting prospect as an illustrator. I wanted to engage with that history while hopefully also bringing something new to the story, and I can’t wait to share the book with readers this June.”