OSCAR Wilde wrote some of the most beautiful fairy tales in the English language. Stories such as The Selfish Giant and The Happy Prince are gems of their kind: tender, poignant, heart-warming and written with soaring grace and beauty.

In many ways, they are far superior to the plays for which the author is better known. This, you feel reading them, is the true Wilde.

So it is great that a publisher like Harper Collins has seen fit to publish them again, in a new edition.

What is annoying about this book is that the publisher has felt it necessary to have Stephen Fry ‘present’ the stories.

On the basis that the comedian has written a very short introduction to each one, his name appears in big letters before Wilde’s in the title. There is even a big photograph of Fry, and not Wilde, on the front cover.

We have news for you, Stephen. You’re not as clever, or as funny, or as interesting as the man who wrote these stories. So get out of the way, please, and let Wilde’s marvellous tales speak for themselves.