British literature summaries - 2020

Short summary - The Star-Child
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde

The poor lumberjack brought into the house a baby with an amber necklace around his neck, wrapped in a cloak with gold stars - he found him in the winter forest at the place where the star fell (other lumberjacks refused to carry the parasite home). At first, the wife was against her mouth, but then she gave up and raised him as her own son. The boy grew up beautiful, but proud and cruel: he tortured animals and people, and the exhortations of the old village priest did not help either.

Once a boy stoned a beggar. The lumberjack gave him a slap in the face, and took the woman home, where she called herself the mother of his adopted son. But he did not recognize her - he declared that he was disgusted to even look at her, and drove him out. When he left the house to the boys who supported him in all cruel amusements, they drove him out of the garden, calling him vile, like a toad. Looking at his reflection in the pond, he saw that he had truly become a freak.

The boy went to wander and look for his mother to beg her forgiveness, but could not find her - the animals he had tortured before refused to help. The guards at the city gates sold him for a bottle of wine to an old man who half-starved kept the boy in the basement room and sent him three days a day to a dense forest, which from the side looked like a pleasant grove, for 3 bars of white, yellow and red gold. Three times the boy was helped by the Hare, whom he freed from the trap, and three times he gave the gold to the leper, who was sitting at the city gate. Twice the old man half to death beat the young man, and for the third time he was met with honors in the city and named the handsome Prince. The bewildered guy rushed to the beggar mother, whom he saw in the crowd, but she was silent. He turned to the leper for intercession, but when he looked up, he saw the King and Queen, his parents.

When the time came, Star Boy became the king - kind and fair.