SurLaLune Fairy Tales Blog

Small Beings: The Borrowers aka The Secret World of Arrietty

2012-02-15T05:00:00.025-06:00

Did anyone else here adore The Borrowers as a child? It's probably no surprise that I hunted them and don't know how many I read from the series since that kind of information wasn't a few computer clicks away back in the dark ages. What was available in my school library, I read, the end. I know none ever lived up to the first which is bargain priced in ebook for $1.59 right now on Amazon so I had get it although I still have a paper edition, too.

Anyway, a new movie based on the book is being released here after its original release in Japan, so yes, there is an anime influence. Now it's The Secret World of Arrietty which I am not so sure is more magical that The Borrowers, but that's me. I am not the target audience anyway.

Jerry Griswold, recent presenter at Grimm Legacies, has an article in the Los Angeles Times to go along with the movie, 'Arrietty,' 'The Borrowers' and the appeal of all things small. Thumbelina and other fairy tale tinies are mentioned, so it fits here, right? Right?

Kids understand how size correlates with power. Adults talk over their heads. At McDonald's, they can't see over the counter to order and they can't pay for a meal with their own credit card. Indeed, restaurants kindly provide high chairs and booster seats in the same way they provide wheelchair access. When Tom Hanks magically changes from a kid into an adult and gets his own apartment and a job on Madison Avenue, the movie is called "Big." Likewise linking size and power, billionaire Leona Helmsley famously said, "Only the little people pay taxes."

That's not to say small fry can't take advantage of their size. That rascal Peter Rabbit goes places where the portly Mr. McGregor can never pursue him. The diminutive Stuart Little does a favor by slipping into a sink drain to recover a lost wedding ring. And Tom Thumb and Jack (once he climbs the beanstalk) are tricksters who have their way with the humongous.

***

This is the world the Borrowers inhabit: where a drop of water is a pending threat to those below, where a ticking clock causes the floor to vibrate and where tissue paper is stiff and loud. It is the same world where Hans Christian Andersen's Thumbelina is "pelted" by a snowflake and where E.B. White's mouse-sized Stuart Little must manhandle a straw when proffered a drink. A change of scale makes us see the ordinary with different eyes.

Oh, children and a few of us adults do love to read about things smaller than us, don't we? If anything, Griswold's article reminded me of some beloved books from my youth.

And while we are here, in case you haven't seen it, here's the movie trailer:

ABC's OUAT: Skin Deep and Beauty and the Beast

2012-02-15T04:59:00.006-06:00

Before I start berating it, this was my favorite scene this week. The power of a name is always interesting and I am curious as to what the writers plan to do with all of this name power. When we find out in season 5.

SPOILERS BE HERE, SO BEWARE

Okay, folks. It's been way too quiet around here in the comments. And I am craving discussion of this past weeks OUAT on ABC, the much anticipated (and sometimes dreaded) Beauty and the Beast episode, "Skin Deep."

What did you think of it? I feared the worst, so I wasn't nearly as disappointed. I have more quibbles than I can discuss here, but I want to leave room for you to agree or disagree anyway.

But I admit to cringing at Chip the Teacup becoming the talisman of Rumpelstiltskin's lost love in Belle. Chip? The Teacup? Why? And, no, a chipped teacup wouldn't have bothered me as much if I hadn't know it was CHIP, an animated child character. Am I overreacting? Of course. But I am still annoyed. The Disney animated references were more intrusive than simple winks at the audience for me. It was almost parody more than anything else.

The image comes from TV.com's review which hit many points for me, so go there for better criticism than I can produce right now. I am not a good tv critic. I laughed and nodded my head while I read it, so that's a good thing. Most of the online discussion has been positive actually. I feel like a grinch, but perhaps I just hate the meandering storytelling. We'll probably see Belle again in, oh, season 3.

Either way, Rumpelstiltskin is certainly much more interesting as a character and villain than Regina since he has an emotional history we can relate to in some way. Regina is just silly. I find her character less and less believable as a villain. She comes across more as a spoiled child whose father should have put her in time out more often, nevermind she may have killed him earlier than she did if he had. She's a rather ineffective psychopath.

And, yes, I am going to keep watching. Because I am entertained on some levels. But now I know why I really hate these long, drawn out series in which nothing really happens. We watch for one or two clues a week, perhaps for years. Sigh..... My personality doesn't mesh with this kind of storytelling.

Okay, one final note: This version of B&B leaned into the interpretations that make so many people hate B&B. The girl is trying to reform and save the beast who hasn't shown any redeeming qualities. This "love" was more like Stockholm Syndrome. He didn't beat her when she chipped a cup so he must be a good person. Huh. The writers relied on us implying love from the fairy tale tropes, not actually showing us a reason for it to actually exist here. In contrast, we, as viewers, see him doing some pretty nasty stuff when she's offscreen so we should believe in it even less. I worry....

Here We Go Again: Are fairy tales too scary for today's children?

2012-02-15T04:00:00.003-06:00

Well, I admit I am planning an entire series of posts on this topic, inspired by Perri Klass's presentation at Grimm Legacies and my own reading. But this is a "top" news stories in the Daily Mail with a new survey to be considered, so I might as well share it while it's hot. Yes?

From Are fairy tales too scary for today's children? Parents admit they refuse to read classics to youngsters By Daily Mail Reporter:

A quarter of the 2,000 parents polled said they wouldn’t consider reading a fairytale to their child until they had reached the age of five, as they prompt too many awkward questions.

Instead, they favour more recent books such as The Gruffalo, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and the Mr Men series.

Steve Hornsey of television channel Watch, which commissioned the study to mark the launch of U.S. drama Grimm, said: ‘As adults we can see the innocence in fairytales, but a five-year-old with an over-active imagination could take things too literally.’

There's more article to read, of course, but the sidebar cannot be missed!

THE END? Top ten fairy tales no longer read to children

1. Hansel and Gretel - Storyline about two abandoned kids is thought likely to scare children
2. Jack and the Beanstalk - Deemed too 'unrealistic'
3. Gingerbread Man - Parents uncomfortable explaining gingerbread man gets eaten by fox
4. Little Red Riding Hood - Deemed unsuitable by parents who must explain a girl's grandmother has been eaten by a wolf
5. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves - The term 'dwarves' was found to be inappropriate
6. Cinderella - Story about a young girl doing all the housework was considered outdated
7. Rapunzel - Parents were worried about the focus on a young girl being kidnapped
8. Rumpelstiltskin - Parents unhappy reading about executions and kidnapping
9. Goldilocks and the Three Bears - Parents say it sends the wrong messages about stealing
10. Queen Bee - Deemed inappropriate as the story has a character called Simpleton

As always, my suggestion--know yourself, know your child. I'm not saying fairy tales are best for everyone, but don't throw them away either. We need our cultural touchstones if nothing else matters. And there are going to be bumps along the way no matter what when it comes to reading with children.

More About Guillermo del Toro's Beauty and the Beast Film

2012-02-14T22:30:00.000-06:00

So Beauty and Beast are gaining momentum these days. The blog title says More About Guillermo del Toro's Beauty and the Beast because I first posted about this possible movie last July. I haven't forgotten about this one because I've been the most hopeful about it, to be honest.

Apparently all the fairy tale hype has it moving into the media's sights again, but that is good news for all of us.

And when articles like this Guillermo del Toro to Direct 'Beauty and the Beast' Tale for Warner Bros. say:

Guillermo del Toro is attached to direct Beauty, a new take on the Beauty and the Beast tale set up at Warner Bros. Harry Potter actress Emma Watson is attached to star. At the same time, the studio has hired Andrew Davies to write the script.

The deal has been in the works since last spring, when del Toro first began working with producers Denise De Novi and Alison Greenspan on a take. The project was initially an adaptation of the novel Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of the Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley but it has evolved since. Watson came on board last summer but it was always a question whether del Toro would act as a producer or join the project as a director as well.

Or this one Guillermo del Toro Will Direct Beauty & The Beast Film Starring Emma Watson! says:

It’s fairy tale fever this year and Hollywood is Beauty and the Beast crazy town at the moment. We summarized yesterday that two television shows are in the works as well as a movie. Well there was already another film in the works, Beauty (or Beast?), which is now moving ahead with Guillermo del Toro at the helm and Harry Potter’s Emma Watson as the star. (We assume she’d play Beauty but wouldn’t it be interesting if she played the Beast?) I think my body is vibrating with excitement.

It's easy to get a little excited isn't it?

But even Robin McKinley has chimed in on this one, mostly to keep the logjam of enthusiasm at her door to a minimum. From her blog today:

I had no idea that news of del Toro’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST project was about to be shot out there—or that there was news of del Toro’s B&B project. Which is another part of my point. Yes, Warner’s optioned BEAUTY* a while ago, but there are like 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 options bought for every ONE movie made, so while option money is lovely because you haven’t done anything extra for it except sign your name, I didn’t take it seriously. I’ve been optioned before. I did register the fact that it was del Toro and Emma Watson behind Warner’s interest, two filmy people whom I’ve even heard of**, an almost un-heard-of situation, and I therefore asked Merrilee about six months after signing if there’d been—by wild, unforeseen circumstance—any movement on the option, and she said there wasn’t. At which point I forgot about it.

So to reiterate: I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THIS. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS. Except that I signed an option contract a while ago. IT IS STILL VERY UNLIKELY THAT THE MOVIE WILL BE MADE. And IF IT IS MADE IT PROBABLY WON’T HAVE ANYTHING IN COMMON WITH MY NOVEL EXCEPT THE PRESENCE OF A BEAUTY AND A BEAST. Maybe. With del Toro you never really know. Which can be a good thing. If disconcerting.

So go ahead and reread one or all of McKinley's books while we wait to see if the movie does get made.

And perhaps del Toro will make the film and it will be interesting to see since his work usually is. Or he will decide fairy tales are passe already and pass on it. Who knows?

Some Bargains for Today: Ebook and Paper

2012-02-14T09:50:00.000-06:00

How to See Faeries by Brian Froud and John Matthews is $9.60, 62% off hardcover price in hardcover.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman for $2.99 in ebook

The Frog Prince (A Romantic Comedy) by Elle Lothlorien is currently free in ebook as is her Sleeping Beauty (A Romantic Comedy) (I believe these are free today only for V-Day.)

Online Graphic Novel of The Farmer's Clever Daughter by Gina Biggs

2012-02-14T06:01:00.006-06:00

I already shared the tale of The Farmer's Clever Daughter for Valentine's Day. Illustrations for the tale are rare, so I had to devote a post to a recent online graphic novel of the tale by Gina Biggs at Erstwhile Tales. There are 34 pages of illustrations, so I will just share a few to entice to you to click through and read!

Most Romantic Fairy Tale for Valentine's Day?

2012-02-14T06:00:00.021-06:00

Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau

(American, 1837-1922)

The Farmer's Daughter, 1876

Oil on canvas

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

I rarely discuss one of my favorite fairy tales, and for me personally, it is one of the most romantic tales. And, no, I don't mean Beauty and the Beast which is my acknowledged favorite.

There are many versions of the tale I am sharing today--and I hope someday to publish a collection of them--but it is often known as The Peasant's Clever Daughter or Clever Manka, ATU 875. I often debate whether this tale or The Grateful Dead will be the 50th annotated tale on SurLaLune. (Someday there will be 50 or more!) Today I will share the Grimms' version:

The Peasant's Clever Daughter

THERE was once a poor peasant who had no land, but only a small house, and one daughter. Then said the daughter, "We ought to ask our lord the King for a bit of newly-cleared land." When the King heard of their poverty, he presented them with a piece of land, which she and her father dug up, and intended to sow with a little corn and grain of that kind. When they had dug nearly the whole of the field, they found in the earth a mortar made of pure gold. "Listen," said the father to the girl, "as our lord the King has been so gracious and presented us with the field, we ought to give him this mortar in return for it." The daughter, however, would not consent to this, and said, "Father, if we have the mortar without having the pestle as well, we shall have to get the pestle, so you had much better say nothing about it." He would, however, not obey her, but took the mortar and carried it to the King, said that he had found it in the cleared land, and asked if he would accept it as a present. The King took the mortar, and asked if he had found nothing besides that? "No," answered the countryman. Then the King said that he must now bring him the pestle. The peasant said they had not found that, but he might just as well have spoken to the wind; he was put in prison, and was to stay there until he produced the pestle. The servants had daily to carry him bread and water, which is what people get in prison, and they heard how the man cried out continually, "Ah! if I had but listened to my daughter! Alas, alas, if I had but listened to my daughter!" and would neither eat nor drink. So he commanded the servants to bring the prisoner before him, and then the King asked the peasant why he was always crying, "Ah! if I had but listened to my daughter!" and what it was that his daughter had said. "She told me that I ought not to take the mortar to you, for I should have to produce the pestle as well." "If you have a daughter who is as wise as that, let her come here." She was therefore obliged to appear before the King, who asked her if she really was so wise, and said he would set her a riddle, and if she could guess that, he would marry her. She at once said yes, she would guess it. Then said the King, "Come to me not clothed, not naked, not riding, not walking, not in the road, and not out of the road, and if thou canst do that I will marry thee." So she went away, put off everything she had on, and then she was not clothed, and took a great fishing net, and seated herself in it and wrapped it entirely round and round her, so that she was not naked, and she hired an ass, and tied the fisherman's net to its tail, so that it was forced to drag her along, and that was neither riding nor walking. The ass had also to drag her in the ruts, so that she only touched the ground with her great toe, and that was neither being in the road nor out of the road. And when she arrived in that fashion, the King said she had guessed the riddle and fulfilled all the conditions. Then he ordered her father to be released from the prison, took her to wife, and gave into her care all the royal possessions.

Now when some years had passed, the King was once drawing up his troops on parade, when it happened that some peasants who had been selling wood stopped with their waggons before the palace; some of them had oxen yoked to them, and some horses. There was one peasant who had three horses, one of which was delivered of a young foal, and it ran away and lay down between two oxen which were in front of the waggon. When the peasants came together, they began to dispute, to beat each other and make a disturbance, and the peasant with the oxen wanted to keep the foal, and said one of the oxen had given birth to it, and the other said his horse had had it, and that it was his. The quarrel came before the King, and he give the verdict that the foal should stay where it had been found, and so the peasant with the oxen, to whom it did not belong, got it. Then the other went away, and wept and lamented over his foal. Now he had heard how gracious his lady the Queen was because she herself had sprung from poor peasant folks, so he went to her and begged her to see if she could not help him to get his foal back again. Said she, "Yes, I will tell you what to do, if thou wilt promise me not to betray me. Early to-morrow morning, when the King parades the guard, place thyself there in the middle of the road by which he must pass, take a great fishing-net and pretend to be fishing; go on fishing, too, and empty out the net as if thou hadst got it full" and then she told him also what he was to say if he was questioned by the King. The next day, therefore, the peasant stood there, and fished on dry ground. When the King passed by, and saw that, he sent his messenger to ask what the stupid man was about? He answered, "I am fishing." The messenger asked how he could fish when there was no water there? The peasant said, "It is as easy for me to fish on dry land as it is for an ox to have a foal." The messenger went back and took the answer to the King, who ordered the peasant to be brought to him and told him that this was not his own idea, and he wanted to know whose it was? The peasant must confess this at once. The peasant, however, would not do so, and said always, God forbid he should! the idea was his own. They laid him, however, on a heap of straw, and beat him and tormented him so long that at last he admitted that he had got the idea from the Queen.

When the King reached home again, he said to his wife, "Why hast thou behaved so falsely to me? I will not have thee any longer for a wife; thy time is up, go back to the place from whence thou camest to thy peasant's hut." One favour, however, he granted her; she might take with her the one thing that was dearest and best in her eyes; and thus was she dismissed. She said, "Yes, my dear husband, if you command this, I will do it," and she embraced him and kissed him, and said she would take leave of him. Then she ordered a powerful sleeping draught to be brought, to drink farewell to him; the King took a long draught, but she took only a little. He soon fell into a deep sleep, and when she perceived that, she called a servant and took a fair white linen cloth and wrapped the King in it, and the servant was forced to carry him into a carriage that stood before the door, and she drove with him to her own little house. She laid him in her own little bed, and he slept one day and one night without awakening, and when he awoke he looked round and said, "Good God! where am I?" He called his attendants, but none of them were there. At length his wife came to his bedside and said, "My dear lord and King, you told me I might bring away with me from the palace that which was dearest and most precious in my eyes. I have nothing more precious and dear than yourself, so I have brought you with me." Tears rose to the King's eyes and he said, "Dear wife, thou shalt be mine and I will be thine," and he took her back with him to the royal palace and was married again to her, and at the present time they are very likely still living.

So what is your favorite romantic fairy tale?

Anna Talbot's Jewelry

2012-02-14T05:00:00.001-06:00

Oh, I saw these a while back and fell in love. Forget diamonds, this is the kind of jewelry I enjoy. The text and images come from Anna Talbot's blog. I'm going to be quiet and just let you enjoy... (Be sure to look for Little Red, Hansel and Gretel and Sleeping Beauty themes.)

I am an Oslo based jewellery artist. My jewellery is inspired by fairy tales, nursery rhymes, songs and stories. Wolves, deer, trees, forests and Little Red Riding Hood are all central elements in my universe, and they don’t necessarily stick to their traditional places. I want to tell a story through characters, colours and materials, and I want people to keep inventing new tales inspired by my jewellery. I make big, three dimensional jewellery in anodised aluminium, wood veneer, brass, gilding metal and silver. I use strong colours and different surfaces to illustrate and create atmospheres. I work in layers to build up a three dimensional piece Some of my pieces are quite large, but the materials I use still mean that they are light enough to be worn. The size makes you aware of wearing the pieces at all times, they demand both space and attention. My jewellery can be hung on a wall or worn on a body. The piece becomes a picture you can carry with you.

Grimm Legacies 2012: "Henry Darger, Adolf Wolfli, and Tales of Violence in Outsider Art" by Cara Zimmerman

2012-02-13T14:24:00.000-06:00

I admit that before I heard Cara Zimmerman's presenation, “Henry Darger, Adolf Wolfli, and Tales of Violence in Outsider Art,” at Grimm Legacies, I knew virtually nothing about Darger's work. (Zimmerman didn't include the Adolf Wolfli part of her presentation due to time constraints.) I know I wasn't alone and much of the after conversation of those who did seemed to be based on watching the documentary about Darger, In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger.

I am going to resort to Wikipedia, since my notes are muddled. I spent more time just processing the art displayed and listening to Zimmerman than trying to take notes since my knowledge was near null.

Henry Joseph Darger, Jr. (ca. April 12, 1892 – April 13, 1973) was a reclusive American writer and artist who worked as a custodian in Chicago, Illinois. He has become famous for his posthumously-discovered 15,145-page, single-spaced fantasy manuscript called The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, along with several hundred drawings and watercolor paintings illustrating the story. Darger's work has become one of the most celebrated examples of outsider art.

Darger's personal library included fairy tale books and Baum's Wizard of Oz. The presentation was fascinating, but the allusion to specific fairy tales is faint so I don't have much to share in that way either. Overall, Darger is a fascinating man who was fascinated with children, children's stories and fairy tale like motifs in his writing and art. There are many great books if you want to read more about him, which I am including in this post.

Call for Papers: The Fairy Tale Vanguard Conference

2012-02-13T13:52:00.001-06:00

I received this late last week in an email and wanted to share. At my last count, that makes 5 conferences in Europe this year with a fairy tale emphasis!

Dear lovers, students and scholars of the fairy tale,

We are happy to report that the preparations for “The Fairy Tale Vanguard” conference (August 20-22, Ghent) are coming along nicely. We have just put the registration form on our website http://www.fairytale.ugent.be/ (“Registration”). Those who wish to enroll, are best to do so before 1 May if they want to benefit from an early bookers discount.

Furthermore, we would also like to announce that we have entered into a cooperation with the Ghent municipal theatre NTGent, organizing a literary evening open to all conference goers, as well as the larger public. Our guests will include celebrated author Rikki Ducornet and a number of members of the NTGent who have been actively working with fairy tales in the recent past, both rewriting them and adapting them for the stage. An update will be posted on our site (“Pleasant Nights”).

We hope to see many of you here in Ghent this summer!

Kind regards,

Stijn Praet and Vanessa Joosen

And here's the call for papers:

During the past decades, a lot has changed in the field of fairy tale studies: moving away from typological, structuralist and hermeneutically essentialist approaches, scholars today have again come to appreciate the specificity of individual fairy tale texts, the historical context in which they originated, and the many ways in which they have functioned. This general turn to history has brought about a variety of interesting new approaches, many of them focusing on questions of a social, political or ideological nature.

However, when it comes to the fairy tale's functioning as a literary art form , i.e. as partaking in the dynamics of larger literary fields, research interests have been much more moderate. During the upcoming conference, we intend to re-examine the fairy tale in ways that will shed light on the genre's position within the conservative and innovative forces that make up for the historical development of literatures. More specifically, we will take off from the idea that throughout its history, the fairy tale has provided authors with a space in which they could engage in literary experimentation and self-consciously reflect on contemporary trends in the literary field. As a result, it was often tied up with or even constituted literary vanguard impulses. Examples of this are plenty, perhaps most obviously in postmodernist writings, but also in the Grimms' careful construction of a national Natur/Volkspoesie, the exploration of mondain préciosité by the French salon writers, the Baroque textual games of Basile's Pentamerone , etc. When we go back further into the genre's prehistory, we encounter even more texts, both in "sacred" and vernacular languages, which display this same propensity for reflection and innovation.

We can at least partially explain this phenomenon by considering the general traits of the genre itself: as fantastic narrative par excellence, the fairy tale has tended to ostentatiously distance itself from more realistic modes of experience and representation. Though often engaged with very tangible historical realities, its general discourse is not so much characterized by faithful mimetic description as it is by creative fabulation - by the act of weaving language into unconventional textures. The tale's relatively short format only aids to heighten our awareness of its (sometimes intricate) architectural construction as a textual artifact - as Angela Carter once said: "The short story is not minimalist, it is rococo. I feel in absolute control. It is like writing chamber music rather than symphonies" (The Bloody Chamber, Vintage 2006, xix). It is exactly this kind of textual control which far exceeds the boundaries of more conventional mimesis that makes the fairy tale into a world of words, at least as much as of things. Not surprisingly then, authors have used this little world of words as a laboratory in which they could experiment with the art of literature, self-consciously explore its subjects, forms, aims and boundaries and comment on other literary forms and cultural debates (both in meaning and in form).

We welcome any proposals for papers regarding these ideas. Possible topics include:

•Theoretical and historical reflections on the literary discourse of the fairy tale genre
•The metaliterary use of fairy tales
•The programmatic paratextual framing of fairy tale collections
•Literary experimentation in fairy tales
•Fairy tales and the formation of national literatures
•The fairy tale's response to and impact on developments within the larger literary field, e.g. its active participation in literary vanguards and movements, its shifting properties in globalized literature, its response to the introduction of new media

A three hundred word abstract and five line biography should be submitted to fairytale@ugent.be.

Abstract deadline: 1 March 2012
Notification of acceptance: April 2012

Bargain Book: Grazing The Long Acre by Gwyneth Jones

2012-02-12T23:17:00.000-06:00

Grazing The Long Acre by Gwyneth Jones is temporarily free in ebook format--probably for five days, but I don't know when the promo started. This is a collection of short stories with one inspired by Cinderella and several with fairy tale influences. The collection was star reviewed by Publishers Weekly. Check here to see if it is also discounted in the UK.

Book description:

Gwyneth Jones’s novels have been acclaimed for three decades, and her modern fairytales Seven Tales And A Fable won two World Fantasy Awards in 1996. And now we have Grazing the Long Acre, the first UK collection of her short fiction. Some of the stories selected, including the BSFA award-winning “La Cenerentola”, have been anthologised; several have never before been reprinted. The earliest here “The Eastern Succession” was written in 1985, the most recent “In The Forest Of The Queen” in 2007.

The settings range from a lyrical, Zelazny-influenced far-future South East Asia, to black comedy sci-fi in the New Space Opera style. There are ghosts and miracles, magical science and scientific magic; characters from novels, investigations of sexual difference, speculations on a future in which physics and neuroscience move into convergence, interrogations of our fascination with the other. Gwyneth Jones’s capacity to move and astonish the reader is undimmed, when distilled into the shorter form.

Review from Publishers Weekly:

Starred Review. In this collection of dense and challenging short stories, many tied to her novels but all easily read alone, BSFA Award winner Jones (Life, Bold as Love) demonstrates that traditions and beliefs dictate the course of the future more than advances in technology or science. Whether cloning the perfect offspring ("La Cenerentola"), subtly undermining a princely succession ("The Eastern Succession") or assassinating a reactionary alien to allow a progressive to ascend ("Saving Tiamaat"), her characters find their fond hopes (or their fears, as in "Grazing the Long Acre" and "The Voyage Out") diminished by the persistence of the past. Pairing naïve Americans with world-wearier Europeans, Jones exposes the utopian impulse of SF to feminist and anti-colonial critiques suffused with literary, genre, film and pop music references. Genre fans will recognize their favorite ideas and images but are sure to be pleasantly surprised by the ways Jones handles them.

Grimm Legacies 2012: Death and the Mother by Ruth Lingford

2012-02-12T07:00:00.012-06:00

Finally, the majority of Ruth Lingford's presenation at Grimm Legacies was dedicated to sharing this film, Death and the Mother, a film she animated and for which she received great recognition.

She shared the story of needing child friendly content to animate while she was an artist in residence with the responsibility to sit in a room and let visitors watch her work at a museum. She went to her shelves and pulled down a volume of Hans Christian Andersen tales. She read The Story of a Mother and thought she couldn't do that for children but the story resonated anyway and a film was born.

The audience begged her to animate more fairy tales after the viewing...

Grimm Legacies 2012: Cinderella (Aschenputtel) by Lotte Reiniger

2012-02-12T06:00:00.016-06:00

Here is another film shared during Grimm Legacies, an early film by Lotte Reiniger, her version of Cinderella (Aschenputtel) from 1922. Reiniger is wonderful and not to be missed. And this film is of special interest since it offers the German version of Cinderella, the Grimms, not the Perrault. There is a tree, not a fairy godmother, heel clipping, etc. Just watch it and enjoy!

Ruth Lingford let this film replay during most of her presentation at Grimm Legacies and addressed the artistry and skill of Reiniger as well as the ability to show more with animation than can be done with live action film. No, heel clipping wouldn't work well in a live action in a film shown to children, would it?

Reiniger created the first feature length animated film with the The Adventures of Prince Achmed which is available on DVD in the US.

Unfortunately, a full collection of her fairy tale films is not on Region 1 (US & Canada DVD) but you can get a Region 2 (UK) at Lotte Reiniger - Fairy Tales [DVD].

Or there is always YouTube and the rest...

Grimm Legacies 2012: Betty Boop as Snow White

2012-02-12T05:01:00.009-06:00

This was one of two films shown during one of the breaks during Grimm Legacies and discussed very briefly in Ruth Lingford's presentation, “Animating the Grimms.” Mostly, the film speaks for itself and its time.

Bargain Ebook: Jane by April Lindner and Some Other Titles

2012-02-12T05:00:00.025-06:00

Jane by April Lindner is another recent bargain priced ebook, this time a modern retelling of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, the classic novel that is often likened to both Bluebeard and Beauty and the Beast.

Book description for Lindner's Jane:

Forced to drop out of an esteemed East Coast college after the sudden death of her parents, Jane Moore takes a nanny job at Thornfield Park, the estate of Nico Rathburn, a world-famous rock star on the brink of a huge comeback. Practical and independent, Jane reluctantly becomes entranced by her magnetic and brooding employer and finds herself in the midst of a forbidden romance.

But there's a mystery at Thornfield, and Jane's much-envied relationship with Nico is soon tested by an agonizing secret from his past. Torn between her feelings for Nico and his fateful secret, Jane must decide: Does being true to herself mean giving up on true love?

An irresistible romance interwoven with a darkly engrossing mystery, this contemporary retelling of the beloved classic Jane Eyre promises to enchant a new generation of readers.

About the Author

April Lindner is an Associate Professor of English at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. Her poetry collection, Skin, received the Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry, and her poems have been featured in many anthologies and textbooks. She holds an MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence College and a PhD in English from the University of Cincinnati. Jane is her debut novel.

There has been a recent surge in Jane Eyre retellings (see The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey, too) as well as some retellings of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, another twist on Bluebeard, for YA readers, such as New Girl by Paige Harbison and Frost by Marianna Baer. These I am listing here have been some of the better reviewed ones. There is also a Rebecca film in development. (I wonder if it will use the Hitchcock version of the twist or du Maurier's original which is much more powerful, isn't it?) We had a new Jane Eyre film last year (more disappointing than not), but I imagine there may be another in a few more years, too. Rebecca, probably thanks to rights issues, has escaped having as many film interpretations.

I am curious about all of these although I admit my enjoyment and even tolerance for Rebecca has lessened with my increasing age. Jane Eyre is still dear to me, but Rebecca disturbs me in ways it never did previously. And yet I am fascinated with these novels as authors try to make the stories contemporary, just as I am always fascinated my fairy tale retellings. The stories resonate and we explore. No, the originals are usually the better, but sometimes we see something we didn't see before, especially in the hands of a talented author.

Morsel of the Day: Maps for Coping

2012-02-11T05:00:00.013-06:00

Although fairy tales are still arguably the most powerfully formative tales of childhood and permeate mass media for children and adults, it is not unusual to find them deemed of marginal cultural importance and dismissed as unworthy of critical attention. Yet the staying power of these stories, their widespread and enduring popularity, suggests that they must be addressing issues that have a significant social function—whether critical, conservative, compensatory, or therapeutic. In a study of mass-produced fantasies for women, Tania Modleski points out that genres such as the soap opera, the Gothic novel, and the Harlequin romance “speak to very real problems amid tensions in women’s lives. The narrative strategies which have evolved for smoothing over these tensions can tell us much about how women have managed not only to live in oppressive circumstances but to invest their situations with some degree of dignity.” Fairy tales register an effort on the part of both women and men to develop maps for coping with personal anxieties, family conflicts, social frictions, and the myriad frustrations of everyday life.

From the introduction to The Classic Fairy Tales (Norton Critical Editions) by Maria Tatar

Grimm Legacies 2012: “Medicine and Märchen” by Valerie Gribben

2012-02-10T06:00:00.046-06:00

This recap is a little easier for me since I am familiar with Gribben's work. She wrote a fairy tale trilogy--The Fairytale Trilogy: Fairytale, The Emperor's Realm, The Three Crowns--starting at the age of sixteen back when SurLaLune was new, too. In fact, the first book was one of the first review books I received from a publisher, if I remember correctly. I don't receive many believe it or not, especially fiction ones, so each one is always a boon to my work here on SurLaLune.

Gribben is now a doctor of medicine who will begin her residency soon. Last summer she wrote an article about how fairy tales help her cope with the real life stories and strains of her chosen profession in an opinion piece in the New York Times: Practicing Medicine Can Be Grimm Work by Valerie Gribben. I linked to the article back when it was published.

She expanded the piece with some extra insights and telling of some tales for her presentation at Grimm Legacies. Two of the tales she explored more deeply were Godfather Death and The Old Man and His Grandson (often known as The Wooden Bowl among storytellers), both Grimms tales. The latter has a Snopes page, by the way, which is rather fascinating.

Here's an excerpt from her original piece which sums up her presentation pretty well, too, but do click through and read the entire article since it is still available to read for free.

The practice of medicine bestows the sacred privilege to ask about the unmentionable. But what happens when the door to Bluebeard’s horror chamber opens, and the bloody secrets spill onto your aseptic field of study? How do you process the pain of your patients?

I found my way back to stories. The Grimm fairy tales once seemed as if they took place in lands far, far away, but I see them now in my everyday hospital rotations. I’ve met the eternal cast of characters. I’ve taken down their histories (the abandoned prince, the barren couple) or seen their handiwork (the evil stepmother, the lecherous king).

Fairy tales are, at their core, heightened portrayals of human nature, revealing, as the glare of injury and illness does, the underbelly of mankind. Both fairy tales and medical charts chronicle the bizarre, the unfair, the tragic. And the terrifying things that go bump in the night are what doctors treat at 3 a.m. in emergency rooms.

So I now find comfort in fairy tales. They remind me that happy endings are possible. With a few days of rest and proper medication, the bewildered princess left relaxed and smiling, with a set of goals and a new job in sight. The endoscopy on my cross-eyed confidante showed she was cancer-free.

And her lovely conclusion:

Healing, I’m learning, begins with kindness, and most fairy tales teach us to show kindness wherever we can, to the stooped little beggar and the highest nobleman.

Once: Before Midnight; Golden; Wild Orchid (Once Upon a Time) by Cameron Dokey

2012-02-10T05:01:00.003-06:00

Once: Before Midnight; Golden; Wild Orchid (Once Upon a Time) by Cameron Dokey was released this week. It's also available in an ebook edition although they are not linked on Amazon. This book offers three of the books by Dokey from the Simon Pulse "Once Upon a Time" series. So nothing new, but a deal on the three books together since they retail at $5.99 to $6.99 each in any format. Dokey was one of the most prolific and popular authors in the series which ended last year.

Book description:

Read “happily ever after” with this magical repackage that includes three enchanting, retold fairy tales.

In this value-priced bind-up of three beloved retellings, readers will journey to faraway fairy tale lands. Before Midnight revisits Cinderella’s story in France, Golden puts a new spin on Rapunzel’s romance, and Wild Orchid reimagines the Chinese tale of Mulan. With so much real-life drama in today’s busy world, Once allows readers to escape into whimsical realms where every story has a happily ever after.

Morsel of the Day: Not My Escape

2012-02-10T05:00:00.009-06:00

Fairy tales were not my escape from reality as a child; rather, they were my reality--for mine was a world in which good and evil were not abstract concepts, and like fairy-tale heroines, no magic would save me unless I had the wit and heart and courage to use it widely.

by Terri Windling in "Surviving Childhood" in The Armless Maiden: And Other Tales for Childhood's Survivors

Grimm Legacies: “The Many Conclusions of ‘Beauty and the Beast’” by Jerry Griswold

2012-02-09T09:00:00.002-06:00

Today has become a Beauty and the Beast day as I recap elements of Jerry Griswold's "The Many Conclusions of 'Beauty and the Beast'" presented at Grimm Legacies and highlight some of the vesions he discussed as well as his own book in different posts.

Griswold began his presentation with a play on Claude Levi-Strauss's statement that "Animals are good to think [with]." (See Levi-Strauss's books, Totemism and The Savage Mind, by the way to learn more about that phrase.) Griswold offered an alternative which the audience liked, "Fairy tales are good things to think with."

Part of Griswold's discussion compared the various types of endings to Beauty and the Beast tales:

(1) The traditional in which the beast is transformed, a majority of the versions.

(2) The "Shrek" conclusion in which the heroine is transformed into a beast to join her mate with Angela Carter's short story "The Tiger's Bride"* given as an example.

(3) A final transformation that takes place in perception only, of which Ricky of the Tuft offers the closest example from traditional tales and Tanith Lee's short story "Beauty"* offers perhaps the best example of all.

Griswold also discussed the tales in which the transformation happens in the middle, such as in Cupid and Psyche and East of the Sun, West of the Moon, which are more "equal" as the heroine must prove herself through tasks, too. These were contrasted with the tales in which the transformation happens at the end and usually disappoint the audience to some degree. There is also the irony of the tales offering as a reward the exact thing they were trying to teach against. "You must look past appearances" and when you do, you are rewarded with something beautiful in appearance, the exact thing that is supposedly no longer important to you.

The Disney and Jean Cocteau versions of the tale were also discussed, especially as disappointments once the transformation has taken place. Disney offers an animated Fabio who is not nearly as exciting as the Beast. This version tries to compensate for the loss of the Beast by having Belle recognize her love's eyes after the shock of losing her beast in the transformation.

But perhaps one of the greatest examples of disappointment in the transformation, at least for the audience, comes in Cocteau's film version of the tale when we are presented with a dandified Jean Marais as the transformed beast. (A great history of this film, by the way, is available at TCM. And Griswold pointed out that Marais was Cocteau's lover which certainly had an impact on some of the director's choices.) Reportedly, Greta Garbo, upon seeing the ending, said, "Give me back my Beast." Griswold believes this disappointing ending was a deliberate decision on Cocteau's part. Here is an edited version of the transformation scene:

There was some interesting Q&A about repulsion and disgust with the beast. Ideas were jumping around too much for me to capture them, but it was an interesting discussion with Griswold as well as David Elmer who had presented Apuleius's Cupid and Psyche and discussed its Beauty and the Beast motifs during the same session.

Also mentioned in connection to the repulsion, was Straparola's King Pork (also known as The Pig King) which is a more unusual Beast tale.
Here is a quick review of Linda Lee's tweets about this session, too:

lindajeanlee #GrimmLegacies next up: Jerry Griswold on the many conclusions of Beauty and the Beast. -12:15 PM Feb 4th, 2012

lindajeanlee #GrimmLegacies Jerry Griswold is really funny! -12:16 PM Feb 4th, 2012http://twitter.com/lindajeanlee

lindajeanlee #GrimmLegacies Griswold: Diverse endings of ATU 425: transformation of beast at end (confusion, surprise), or in middle, or of heroine. -12:31 PM Feb 4th, 2012

lindajeanlee #GrimmLegacies Griswold: Or not at all, transformation only in eye of beholder, as in Tanith Lee's "Beauty." -12:32 PM Feb 4th, 2012

lindajeanlee #GrimmLegacies Griswold: For transformation-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder, fear must first subside. #necessarycondition#ATU425 -12:34 PM Feb 4th, 2012

lindajeanlee #GrimmLegacies Griswold: Awfulness becomes awe-full-ness. #ATU425 Love comes before transformation to beauty.-12:36 PM Feb 4th, 2012

And, no, before you ask, none of Robin McKinley's Beauty and the Beast versions were mentioned during the presentation or Q&A although a few audience members discussed them with me after the presentation. McKinley's Beauty and others have deeply impacted many readers over the years, too. It wasn't a slight but a limitation of time.

*Remember that both Carter's "The Tiger's Bride" and Lee's "Beauty" are also reprinted in Griswold's The Meanings of "Beauty & The Beast" A Handbook.

Film Short: Three Beauties by Tiffanie Hsu

2012-02-09T08:00:00.008-06:00

Three Beauties from Tiffanie Hsu on Vimeo.

"Three Beauties" is a short film by Tiffanie Hsu, a student film that won her a Hoopes Prize at Harvard. Ruth Lingford wanted to share this film during her presentation of “Animating the Grimms” at Grimm Legacies, but time ran out after the DVD didn't cooperate.

So I went ahunting and found it on Vimeo and had to share it here. Enjoy!3

From Hsu's description of the film:

A three cultures' tale of Beauty and the Beast.

This animation takes strands from the various evolutions of the "Beauty and the Beast" myth that have evolved across the world and weaves them into its own unique tale. See if you can figure out to which cultures and larger myths each piece belongs.

Red As Blood: Or, Tales From the Sisters Grimmer by Tanith Lee

2012-02-09T07:00:00.007-06:00

Red As Blood: Or, Tales From the Sisters Grimmer by Tanith Lee, or at least one story in it, dominated Jerry Griswold's presentation on Beauty and the Beast at the Grimm Legacies Symposium. If you are just interested in "Beauty," the story he discussed and identified as one of his favorite retellings of the tale, it is also reprinted in his The Meanings of "Beauty & The Beast" A Handbook.

And I agree with Griswold that Lee's "Beauty" is an amazing rendition of the story and has been on my short list of favorites since I first read it years ago. I had a xeroxed copy of the story for years before I was finally able to buy a used copy of the collection thanks to the internet. Yes, I read the story long before I ever dreamed up this SurLaLune bit of mine, a library edition that I couldn't check out indefinitely as much as I wanted to.

But...

Don't stop there. This is an impressive collection of tales and the collection shouldn't be missed. This book has been long out of print and rumors of reprinting have been around for a while. A first volume of Lee's short stories is due out this summer--Tempting the Gods: The Selected Stories of Tanith Lee Volume 1--but I haven't seen a table of contents for it nor does it seem to have stories from Red as Blood in it. Fingers crossed for volume 2.

And we can hope for an ebook version, too. After all, lover or hater of ebooks, you have to admit that improving access to out-of-print books is one of the greatest boons of ebooks. And authors get the royalties unlike with used copies. While I have owned two copies of Red as Blood, Lee has never seen the proceeds of those sales since both copies were used, my only option for acquisition. (I eventually replaced a crumbly paperback with a fine hardcover edition.) The book has been out of print for a very long time, too, which means all of the times I have recommended it have not resulted in a sale to her paycheck either. Can you see how this has been a long wish of mine, to see this book back in print? I think it would sell exceptionally well in a year like 2012 in which darker retellings are in demand.

According to Wikipedia:

Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer is a short story collection of dark fantasy retellings of popular fairytales by British author Tanith Lee. Contrary to what the title may suggest, it not only includes retellings of fairytales by the Brothers Grimm, but also by Charles Perrault, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve or Alexander Afanasyev. The title story was nominated for a Nebula Award and a World Fantasy Award. This collection was also nominated for a World Fantasy Award.

Table of Contents for Red as Blood:

1.Paid Piper- Asia: The Last Century B.C. (retelling of The Pied Piper of Hamelin)
2.Red as Blood- Europe: The Fourteenth Century (retelling of Snow White)
3.Thorns- Eurasia: The Fifteenth Century (retelling of Sleeping Beauty)
4.When The Clock Strikes- Europe: The Sixteenth Century (retelling of Cinderella)
5.The Golden Rope- Europe: The Seventeenth Century (retelling of Rapunzel)
6.The Princess And Her Future- Asia: The Eighteenth Century (retelling of The Frog Princess)
7.Wolfland- Scandinavia: The Nineteenth Century (retelling of Little Red Riding Hood)
8.Black As Ink- Scandinavia: The Twentieth Century (retelling of The White Duck)
9.Beauty- Earth: The Future (retelling of Beauty and the Beast)

The Meanings of "Beauty & The Beast" A Handbook by Jerry Griswold

2012-02-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

The Meanings of "Beauty & The Beast" A Handbook by Jerry Griswold is a must own for fans of Beauty and the Beast (like me). The other is Beauty and the Beast: Visions and Revisions of an Old Tale but that's for discussing another day. The books actually make great companions to each other since Hearne focuses on the history and iterations of the tale, avoiding interpretations, while Griswold is focused on many of the possible interpretations of the tale as the title implies.

Griswold was one of the presenters at Grimm Legacies, and not surprisingly, he gave an entertaining presentation on Beauty and the Beast. So to start off the recap, I wanted to offer a post on Griswold's book devoted to the tale. I will share more about his presentation in another post as well as another devoted to his favorite iteration of Beauty and the Beast. Stay tuned to learn more.

Book description:

Using Beaumont’s classic story as a touchstone, this work shows how "Beauty and the Beast" takes on different meanings as it is analyzed by psychologists, illustrated in picture books, adapted to the screen, and rewritten by contemporary writers.

The Meanings of "Beauty and the Beast" provides expert commentary on the tale and on representative critical approaches and contemporary adaptations. This book also includes a variety of original source materials and twenty-three colour illustrations.

The Meanings of "Beauty and the Beast" is for any reader who wishes to explore this classic, endlessly rich fairy tale.

About the Author

Jerry Griswold is a professor of literature at San Diego State University. He is the author of several books, including Audacious Kids: Coming of Age in America’s Classic Children’s Books (Oxford University Press, 1992; reissued as The Classic American Children’s Story: Novels of the Golden Age by Penguin, 1996) and The Children’s Books of Randall Jarrell (University of Georgia Press, 1988). Griswold has also published more than one hundred essays in The Paris Review, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review and elsewhere. He writes frequently for The Los Angeles Times.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Importance of "Beauty and the Beast"
2. The Tale and its Author
3. Among the Critics
4. Sources
5. Folk Tale Variations
6. Illustrations
7. Contemporary Versions
8. Films

Selected Bibliography

Morsel of the Day: Beauty and the Beast as a Popular Tale

2012-02-09T05:00:00.009-06:00

Besides its wide appeal over time and space, we might note who this story especially speaks to. Over the years, I have asked people from all walks of life to identify their favorite works of literature; I’ve taken surveys, and some of the results have appeared in print. When I’ve asked people about their favorite fairy tale, one story consistently emerges as the most popular: “Cinderella.” But when the answers are divided by the gender of the respondents, after “Cinderella,” the second most popular fairy tale among women is “Beauty and the Beast.” Women tell me they love the tale because of its vision of feminine empowerment in the way Beauty tames the huge and formidable Beast and changes him into a gentleman, because it offers them the hope that in their own love lives they might be able to do the same, and because (they sometimes reluctantly admit) they are drawn to the erotic notion of the beastly lover.

But that’s not to suggest that men don’t find “Beauty and the Beast” an appealing tale. in my own experience, however, men have been less candid in describing the story’s attraction to them, but part of the reason may be, as W. R. Ralston has observed, that “many a plain man has been secretly consoled by the favorable impression produced upon [the story’s heroine] by its unprepossessing hero.”

by Jerry Griswold, from his introduction to The Meanings of "Beauty & The Beast" A Handbook

Don't Tell the Grown-Ups: The Subversive Power of Children's Literature by Alison Lurie

2012-02-08T15:11:00.000-06:00

Since John Cech mentioned "Female Liberation" during his presentation (or was it the Q&A?) I decided it was a fine time for me to devote a quick post to the book it was reprinted in, Don't Tell the Grown-Ups: The Subversive Power of Children's Literature by Alison Lurie. Lurie has long been a fairy tale apologist and edited a few fairy tale related books. She also wrote several articles about fairy tales for the popular media.

Lurie's articles, especially "Fairy Tale Liberation," first printed in 1970 in The New York Review of Books inspired a response "Some Day My Prince Will Come": Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale by Marcia R. Lieberman in 1972 (this is an article and I linked to it on JSTOR which requires login to access) which was a key article in the feminist anti-fairy tales stance held by some during the height of the 1970s and beyond. I am oversimplifying here, but some feminist writers accused fairy tales of teaching girls the wrong messages about women's roles, behaviors, etc. These arguments still resonate and echo today. For example, recent books like Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture by Peggy Orenstein are a direct inheritor of this decades old discussion.

Needless to say, I am pretty firmly in Lurie's camp myself, but I also understand the other side and sympathize with it, too. After all, I was born the year Lieberman's article was published, so all of these views have informed my life and education. Feminism is not a bad word to me as it is to some.

But that is just one small part of Lurie's book which I highly recommend. It was one of the first books I added to my shelf the year I started SurLaLune and started revving up my personal fairy tale studies and children's literature studies library.

Book description:

In sixteen spirited essays, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Alison Lurie, who is also one of our wittiest and most astute cultural commentators, explores the world of children's literature--from Lewis Carroll to Dr. Seuss, Mark Twain to Beatrix Potter--and shows that the best-loved children's books tend to challenge rather than uphold respectable adult values.

And since it provides a little more insight into the book, Library Journal's review:

While not a comprehensive history of the unorthodox in children's books, the 16 essays collected here (some from the New York Review of Books and Children's Literature ) do offer witty and illuminating insights into the classics they explore. Chapters on folktales, Greenaway, Nesbit, Barrie, and Milne are especially rich. Lurie may win new readers for Shardik , T.H. White, and William Mayne. Essays on Mrs. Clifford's and F.M. Ford's little-known stories unconvincingly stretch the "subversive" to include these writers' very private, and even unbalanced, use of unconventional material, while Chapters 3 and 4, on adult books, have crept in on a subversive mission of their own. Although the theme announced in the subtitle is not so strong a unifying thread as one might wish, the book is worth having for its careful, reasonably feminist, and often fascinating readings of some enduring texts.
- Patricia Dooley, Univ. of Washington Lib. Sch., Seattle

Bio for Alison Lurie:

Alison Lurie edited The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales. She was for many years a professor of English at Cornell University, where she taught writing, folklore, and children's literature. Her novels include The War Between the Tates; Foreign Affairs, for which she won a Pulitzer Prize; and, most recently, The Last Resort. She divides her time between Ithaca, New York; Key West, Florida; and London.

Table of Contents:

Foreword
1.Subversive children's literature
2.Folktale liberation
3.Fairy tale fiction: Fitzgerald to Updike
4.Braking for elves: fashionable folklore for adults
5.Child who followed the piper: Kate Greenaway
6.Tales of terror: Mrs. Clifford
7.Ford Madox Ford's fairy tales
8.Animal liberation: Beatrix Potter
9.Modern magic: E. Nesbit
10.Boy who couldn't grow up: James Barrie
11.Happy endings: Frances Hodgson Burnett
12.Back to Pooh Corner: A.A. Milne
13.Heroes for our time: J.R.R. Tolkien and T.H. White
14.Power of Smokey: Richard Adams
15.Games of dark: William Mayne
16.Folklore of childhood
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Grimm Legacies 2012: The Grimms, Sendak, and the Zeitgeist by John Cech

2012-02-08T14:44:00.000-06:00

The Juniper Tree: And Other Tales from Grimm translated by Lore Segal and Randall Jarrell and illustrated by Maurice Sendak was the primary focus of John Cech's presentation at Grimm Legacies, titled "The Grimms, Sendak, and the Zeitgeist." I posted about the book almost a year ago and shared the book description and table of contents with some images so go there to see those During his talk, Cech had a rotating slide presentation of Sendak's illustrations for the book. Since these illustrations are rather small format in their book I really enjoyed seeing them in their blown-up glory on the screen where more of the minute details were visible.

I'll share some highlights of the Cech's presentation here interspersed with images from the book.

First published in 1973, The Juniper Tree marked a tipping point in the interest in fairy tales during that era. Up to that point, there hadn't been many fairy tales illustrated with more of a salt and vinegar feel, with perhaps the most recent having been Wanda Gag's collections first published in 1936. (I've posted about Gag's Snow White previously, but need to devote some more posts to her work. Note to self.)

The book was first a collaboration between Randall Jarrell and Sendak, but Jarrell died when the project was barely begun with only five translations. (You can read one of my previous posts about Randall Jarrell here.)

Lore Segal was chosen to complete the collaboration. Together, she and Sendak chose the tales that resonated best with them, some well-known and others not as well-known, resulting in 27 tales with one illustration for each.

Sendak chose to illustrate an important, key point in the plot of each tale. Some have criticized his illustrations as claustrophobic, but Cech interprets the choices as intimate, close-up views of the characters. He studied the engraving work of artists such as Albrecht Dürer and the early illustrated versions of Grimms, too.

Cech referenced a few books, articles and videos in his presentation, including:

Wanda Gag's fairy tale books

Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated by James Thurber

Beyond the Looking Glass: Extraordinary Works of Fairy Tale & Fantasy by Jonathan Cott (I've owned this but can't find it again on my shelves. Hmmmm.)

"Some Day My Prince Will Come": Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale by Marcia R. Lieberman (this is an article and I linked to it on JSTOR which requires login to access) (This, for your quick reference, is anti-fairy tales in the name of feminism.)

Don't Tell the Grown-Ups: The Subversive Power of Children's Literature by Alison Lurie, specifically the reprint of "Fairy Tale Liberation" (I am going to devote another post today to this book.)

Sendak on Colbert: The videos, Part I and Part II, are online and have content warning if that concerns you. They are funny and rather unexpected from Colbert and Sendak, but then again not.

Tell Them Anything You Want, a documentary about Sendak by Spike Jonze

Finally, more about John Cech:

John Cech is the author of fiction, prose, poetry, and criticism for adults and children, including Angels and Wild Things, a study of the work of Maurice Sendak. Cech is Professor of English and Children’s Literature and the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he also directs the Center for Children’s Literature and Culture. Cech has been a commentator on children’s culture for NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and he was the creator, producer, and host of “Recess!”--the public radio program about the cultures of childhood, which aired nationally from 1998-2006.

Please note that these are from my own notes and may not be 100% accurate to Cech's presentation. When it comes to these topics and day-long thinking fests, my own brain imposes my knowledge and thoughts into my notes, so any errors will be rightfully mine. He should be consulted for any direct quotations or clarification.

Bargain Ebook: White Cat by Holly Black for $2.99

2012-02-08T12:24:00.000-06:00

White Cat (Curse Workers Book 1) by Holly Black has been temporarily priced dropped to $2.99 in ebook format. The other books in the series, Red Glove and Black Heart (a preorder), are $9.99 each, so this is a great way to learn if you like Black's style and want to read more. And I happen to like the new covers even if this means the hardcover editions won't match. (I never like that. I like matching sets. It's a personality thing.)

Book description:

Cassel comes from a shady, magical family of con artists and grifters. He doesn’t fit in at home or at school, so he’s used to feeling like an outsider. He’s also used to feeling guilty—he killed his best friend, Lila, years ago.

But when Cassel begins to have strange dreams about a white cat, and people around him are losing their memories, he starts to wonder what really happened to Lila. In his search for answers, he discovers a wicked plot for power that seems certain to succeed. But Cassel has other ideas—and a plan to con the conmen.

About the Author

Holly Black is the bestselling author of the Spiderwick series. Her Modern Faerie Tales series is comprised of Tithe, which was an ALA Top Ten Book for Teens and received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews; Valiant, which was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a Locus Magazine Recommended Read, and a recipient of the Andre Norton Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America; and Ironside, the sequel to Tithe, was a New York Times bestseller. White Cat, the first book in the Curse Workers series, was a Kirkus Reviews Best Book, and ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults, and received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and BCCB. Red Glove, the second book in the Curse Workers series, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Holly has also written a collection of short stories, The Poison Eaters and Other Stories. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. Visit Holly at blackholly.com.

Grimm Legacies 2012: External Reports

2012-02-08T09:51:00.000-06:00

Yes, I am behind on recapping the Grimm Legacies--I also felt that my many posts devoted to Dickens yesterday were more than enough for anyone's reading yesterday. So the recap will go on for a few weeks and one paper is spawning a brief series on SurLaLune--more about that later.

For now, I wanted to share a link to The Harvard Crimson's coverage of the event at Folk and Myth Talks Grimm By Melanie A. Guzman:

University of Minnesota professor Jack D. Zipes, who has authored numerous books on the Grimms’ tales, delivered the keynote address Friday on the pair’s legacy. “The Brothers Grimm have [had] a very unusual reception in Germany and a lot of their fairy tales have been sanitized and infantilized and really not been acknowledged as profound contributions to German culture,” Zipes said. “I showed, however, that there is another level in Germany where they take these stories extremely seriously and produce great illustrations based on their work.”

Folklore and Mythology Chair Maria Tatar delivered Saturday’s welcome address, entitled “Magic and Mythical: 200 Years of Brothers Grimm.”

“I wanted to show how [the tales’] magic has a mythical quality to it,” said Tatar, who teaches Folklore and Mythology 90i: “Fairy Tales and Fantasy Literature.” “They take us to the great existential mysteries, questions about death, reproduction, love, romance, power, all of these fundamental matters,” Tatar said.

And Gypsy over at Once Upon a Blog has archived the tweets from Twitter about the symposium on her blog, too. Thanks for taking the time to do that, Gypsy!

Morsel of the Day: Fairy stories are everywhere and every-day

2012-02-08T05:00:00.005-06:00

A KIND enchantress one day put into my hand a mystic volume prettily lettered and bound in green, saying, "I am so fond of this book. It has all the dear old fairy tales in it; one never tires of them. Do take it."

I carried the little book away with me, and spent a very pleasant quiet evening at home by the fire, with H. at the opposite corner, and other old friends, whom I felt I had somewhat neglected of late. Jack and the Beanstalk, Puss in Boots, the gallant and quixotic Giant-killer, and dearest Cinderella, whom we every one of us must have loved, I should think, ever since we first knew her in her little brown pinafore: I wondered, as I shut them all up for the night between their green boards, what it was that made these stories so fresh and so vivid. Why did not they fall to pieces, vanish, explode, disappear, like so many of their contemporaries and descendants? And yet far from being forgotten and passing away, it would seem as if each generation in turn as it came into the world looks to be delighted still by the brilliant pageant, and never tires or wearies of it. And on their side the princes and princesses never seem to grow any older; the castles and the lovely gardens flourish without need of repair or whitewash, or plumbers or glaziers. The princesses' gowns, too—sun, moon, and star-colour,—do not wear out or pass out of fashion or require altering. Even the seven-leagued boots do not appear to be the worse for wear. Numbers of realistic stories for children have passed away. Little Henry and his Bearer, and Poor Harry and Lucy, have very nearly given up their little artless ghosts and prattle, and ceased making their own beds for the instruction of less excellently brought-up little boys and girls, and notwithstanding a very interesting article in the Saturday Review, it must be owned that Harry Sandford and Tommy Merton are not familiar playfellows in our nurseries and school-rooms, and have passed somewhat out of date. But not so all these centenarians—Prince Riquet, Carabas, Little Red Riding-hood, Bluebeard and others. They seem as if they would never grow old. They play with the children, they amuse the elders, there seems no end to their fund of spirits and perennial youth.

H., to whom I made this remark, said from the opposite chimney-corner, "No wonder; the stories are only histories of real living persons turned into fairy princes and princesses. Fairy stories are everywhere and every-day. We are all princes and princesses in disguise, or ogres or wicked dwarfs. All these histories are the histories of human nature, which does not seem to change very much in a thousand years or so, and we don't get tired of the fairies because they are so true to it."

After this little speech of H.'s, we spent an unprofitable half-hour reviewing our acquaintance, and classing them under their real characters and qualities. We had dined with Lord Carabas only the day before and met Puss in Boots—Beauty and the Beast were also there; we uncharitably counted up, I am ashamed to say, no less than six Bluebeards. Jack and. the Beanstalk we had met just starting on his climb. A Red Riding-hood; a girl with toads dropping from her mouth: we knew three or four of each. Cinderellas—alas! who does not know more than one dear, poor, pretty Cinderella? and, as for sleeping Princesses in the Woods, how many one can reckon up! Young, old, ugly, pretty, awakening, sleeping still.

from “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood” in Five Old Friends (1875) by Anne Thackeray Ritchie

Dickens Birthday: Frauds on the Fairies by Charles Dickens

2012-02-07T10:00:00.001-06:00

This entry serves a double duty for me since Michael Hearn discussed it in his presentation, "Increasing the Happiness of Children: George Cruikshank Illustrates the Brothers Grimm," at the Grimm Legacies Symposium. Yes, Hearn's presentation was on Cruikshank's work but this included George Cruikshank's Fairy Library, publications in Cruikshank's career in which he rewrote and illustrated fairy tales to push his temperance agenda. A compilation of all four titles in one book in all its glory is viewable at Google Books here.

Cruikshank's new work upset Dickens and prompted this response and insured they were not fans of each other. Hearn stated in his presentation that after Dickens' death, Cruikshank said he didn't like the man, so the animosty lasted beyond the grave.

This is also the piece from which was taken the popular Dickens quote, "In an utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected."

Frauds on the Fairies
by Charles Dickens

WE must assume that we are not singular in entertaining a very great tenderness for the fairy literature of our childhood. What enchanted us then, and is captivating a million of young fancies now, has, at the same blessed time of life, enchanted vast hosts of men and women who have done their long day's work and laid their grey heads down to rest. It would be hard to estimate the amount of gentleness and mercy that has made its way among us through these slight channels. Forbearance, courtesy, consideration for poor and aged, kind treatment of animals, love of nature, abhorrence of tyranny and brute force--many such good things have been first nourished in the child's heart by this powerful aid. It has greatly helped to keep us, in some sense, ever young, by preserving through our worldly ways one slender track not overgrown with weeds, where we may walk with children, sharing their delights.

In an utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that Fairy tales should be respected. Our English red tape is too magnificently red ever to be employed in the tying up of such trifles, but every one who has considered the subject knows full well that a nation without fancy, without some romance, never did, never can, never will, hold a great place under the sun. The theatre, having done its worst to destroy these admirable fictions--having in a most exemplary manner destroyed itself, its artists, and its audiences, in that perversion of its duty--it becomes doubly important that the little books themselves, nurseries of fancy as they are, should be preserved. To preserve them in their usefulness, they must be as much preserved in their simplicity, and purity, and innocent extravagance, as if they were actual fact. Whosoever alters them to suit his own opinions, whatever they are, is guilty, to our thinking, of an act of presumption, and appropriates to himself what does not belong to him.

We have lately observed, with pain, intrusion of a Whole Hog of unwieldy dimensions into the fairy flower garden. The rooting of the animal among the roses would in itself have awakened in us nothing but indignation; our pain arises from his being violently driven in by a man of genius, our own beloved friend, MR. GEORGE CRUIIKSHANK. That incomparable artist is, of all men, the last who should lay his exquisite hand on fairy text. In his own art he understands it so perfectly, and illustrates it so beautifully, so humorously, so wisely, that he should never lay down his etching needle to "edit" the Ogre, to whom with that little instrument he can render such extraordinary justice. But, to "editing" Ogres, and Hop o'-my-thumbs, and their families, our dear moralist has in a rash moment taken, as a means of propagating the doctrines of Total Abstinence, Prohibition of the sale of spirituous liquors, Free Trade, and Popular Education. For the introduction of these topics he has altered the text of a fairy story; and against his right to do any such thing we protest with all our might and main. Of his likewise altering it to advertise that excellent series of plates, "The Bottle," we say nothing more than that we foresee a new and improved edition of Goody Two Shoes, edited by E. Moses and Son; of the Dervish with the box of ointment, edited by Professor Holloway; and of Jack and the Beanstalk edited by Mary Wedlake, the popular authoress of Do you bruise your oats yet.

Now, it makes not the least difference to our objection whether we agree or disagree with our worthy friend, Mr. Cruikshank, in the opinions he interpolates upon an old fairy story. Whether good or bad in themselves, they are, in that relation, like the famous definition of a weed; a thing growing up in a wrong place. He has no greater moral justification in altering the harmless little books than we should have in altering his best etchings. If such a precedent were followed we must soon become disgusted with the old stories into which modern personages so obtruded themselves, and the stories themselves must soon be lost. With seven Blue Beards in the field, each coming at a gallop from his own platform mounted on a foaming hobby a generation or two hence would not know which was which, and the great original Blue Beard would be confounded with the counterfeits. Imagine a Total abstinence edition of Robinson Crusoe, with the rum left out. Imagine a Peace edition, with the gunpowder left out, and the rum left in. Imagine a Vegetarian edition, with the goat's flesh left out. Imagine a Kentucky edition, to introduce a flogging of that 'tarnal old nigger Friday, twice a week. Imagine an Aborigines Protection Society edition, to deny cannibalism and make Robinson embrace the amiable savages whenever they landed. Robinson Crusoe would be "edited" out of his island in a hundred years, and the island would be swallowed up in the editorial ocean.

Among the other learned professions we have now the Platform profession, chiefly exercised by a new and meritorious class of commercial travellers who go about to take the sense of meetings on various articles: some, of a very superior description: some, not quite so good. Let us write the story of Cinderella, "edited" by one of these gentlemen, doing a good stroke of business, and having a rather extensive mission.

ONCE upon a time, a rich man and his wife were the parents of a lovely daughter. She was a beautiful child, and became, at her own desire, a member of the Juvenile Bands of Hope when she was only four years of age. When this child was only nine years of age her mother died, and all the Juvenile Bands of Hope in her district--the Central district, number five hundred and twenty-seven--formed in a procession of two and two, amounting to fifteen hundred, and followed her to the grave, singing chorus Number forty-two, "O come," &c. This grave was outside the town, and under the direction of the Local Board of Health; which reported at certain stated intervals to the General Board of Health, Whitehall.

The motherless little girl was very sorrowful for the loss of her mother, and so was her father too, at first; but, after a year was over, he married again--a very cross widow lady, with two proud tyrannical daughters as cross as herself. He was aware that he could have made his marriage with this lady a civil process by simply making a declaration before a Registrar; but he was averse to this course on religious grounds, and, being a member of the Montgolfian persuasion, was married according to the ceremonies of that respectable church by Reverend Jared Jocks, who improved the occasion.

He did not live long with his disagreeable wife. Having been shamefully accustomed to shave with warm water instead of cold, which he ought to have used (see Medical Appendix B. and C.), his undermined constitution could not bear up against her temper, and he soon died. Then, this orphan was cruelly treated by her stepmother and the two daughters, and was forced to do the dirtiest of kitchen work; to scour the saucepans, wash the dishes, and light the fires--which did not consume their own smoke, but emitted a dark vapour prejudicial to the bronchial tubes. The only warm place in the house where she was free from ill-treatment was the kitchen chimney-corner; and as she used to sit down there, among the cinders, when her work was done, the proud fine sisters gave her the name of Cinderella.

About this time, the King of the land, who never made war against anybody, and allowed everybody to make war against him--which was the reason why his subjects were the greatest manufacturers on earth, and always lived in security and peace--gave a great feast, which was to last two days. This splendid banquet was to consist entirely of artichokes and gruel; and from among those who were invited to it, and to hear the delightful speeches after dinner, the King's son was to choose a bride for himself. The proud fine sisters were invited, but nobody knew anything about poor Cinderella, and she was to stay at home.

She was so sweet-tempered, however, that she assisted the haughty creatures to dress, and bestowed her admirable taste upon them as freely as if they had been kind to her. Neither did she laugh when they broke seventeen stay-laces in dressing; for, although she wore no stays herself, being sufficiently acquainted with the anatomy of the human figure to be aware of the destructive effects of tight-lacing, she always reserved her opinions on that subject for the Regenerative Record (price three halfpence in a neat wrapper), which all good people take in, and to which she was a Contributor.

At length the wished for moment arrived, and the proud fine sisters swept away to the feast and speeches, leaving Cinderella in the chimney- corner. But, she could always occupy her mind with the general question of the Ocean Penny Postage, and she had in her pocket an unread Oration on that subject, made by the well known Orator, Nehemiah Nicks. She was lost in the fervid eloquence that talented Apostle when she became aware of the presence of one of those female relatives which (it may not be generally known) it is not lawful for a man to marry. I allude to her grandmother.

"Why so solitary, my child?" said the old lady to Cinderella.

"Alas, grandmother," returned the poor girl, "my sisters have gone to the feast and speeches, and here sit I in the ashes, Cinderella !"

"Never," cried the old lady with animation, "shall one of the Band of Hope despair! Run into the garden, my dear, and fetch me an American Pumpkin! American, because some parts of that independent country, there are prohibitory laws against the sale of alcoholic drinks in any form. Also, because America produced (among many great pumpkins) the glory of her sex, Mrs. Colonel Bloomer. None but an American Pumpkin will do, my child."

Cinderella ran into the garden, and brought the largest American pumpkin she could find. This virtuously democratic vegetable her grandmother immediately changed into a splendid coach. Then, she sent her for mice from the mouse-trap, which she changed into prancing horses, free from the obnoxious and oppressive post-horse duty. Then, to the rat- trap in the stable for a rat, which she changed to a state-coachman, not amenable to the iniquitous assessed taxes. Then, to look behind a watering-pot for six lizards, which she changed into six footmen, each with a petition in his hand ready to present to the Prince, signed by fifty thousand persons, in favour of the early closing movement.

"But grandmother," said Cinderella, stopping in the midst of her delight, and looking at her clothes, "how can I go to the palace in these miserable rags?"

"Be not uneasy about that, my dear," returned her grandmother.

Upon which the old lady touched her with her wand, her rags disappeared, and she was beautifully dressed. Not in the present costume of the female sex, which has been proved to be at once grossly immodest and absurdly inconvenient, but in rich sky-blue satin pantaloons gathered at the ankle, a puce-coloured satin pelisse sprinkled with silver flowers, and a very broad Leghorn hat. The hat was chastely ornamented with a rainbow-coloured ribbon hanging in two bell-pulls down the back; the pantaloons were ornamented with a golden stripe; and the effect of the whole was unspeakably sensible, feminine, and retiring. Lastly, the old lady put on Cinderella's feet a pair of shoes made of glass: observing that but for the abolition of the duty on that article, it never could have been devoted to such a purpose; the effect of all such taxes being to cramp invention, and embarrass the producer, to the manifest injury of the consumer. When the old lady had made these wise remarks, she dismissed Cinderella to the feast and speeches, charging her by no means to remain after twelve o'clock at night.

The arrival of Cinderella at the Monster Gathering produced a great excitement. As a delegate from the United States had just moved that the King do take the chair, as the motion had been seconded and carried unanimously, the King himself could not go forth to receive her. But His Royal Highness the Prince (who was to move the second resolution), went to the door to hand from her carriage. This virtuous Prince, being completely covered from head to foot with Total Abstinence Medals, shone as if he were attired in complete armour; while the inspiring strains of the Peace Brass Band in the gallery (composed of the Lambkin Family, eighteen in number, who cannot be too much encouraged) awakened additional enthusiasm.

The King's son handed Cinderella to one of the reserved seats for pink tickets, on the platform, and fell in love with her immediately. His appetite deserted him; he scarcely tasted his artichokes, and merely trifled with his gruel. When the speeches began, and Cinderella, wrapped in the eloquence of the two inspired delegates who occupied the entire evening in speaking to the first Resolution, occasionally cried, "Hear, hear!" the sweetness of her voice completed her conquest of the Prince's heart. But, indeed the whole male portion of the assembly loved her--and doubtless would have done so, even if she had been less beautiful, in consequence of the contrast which her dress presented to the bold and ridiculous garments of the other ladies.

At a quarter before twelve the second inspired delegate having drunk all the water in the decanter, and fainted away, the King put the question, "That this Meeting do now adjourn until to-morrow." Those who were of that opinion holding up their hands, and then those who were of the contrary, theirs, there appeared an immense majority in favour of the resolution which was consequently carried. Cinderella got home in safety, and heard nothing all that night, or all next day, but the praises of the unknown lady with the sky-blue satin pantaloons.

When the time for the feast and speeches came round again, the cross stepmother and the proud fine daughters went out in good time to secure their places. As soon as they were gone, Cinderella's grandmother returned and changed her as before. Amid a blast of welcome from the Lambkin family, she was again handed to the pink seat on the platform by His Royal Highness.

This gifted Prince was a powerful speaker, and had the evening before him. He rose at precisely ten minutes before eight, and was greeted with tumultuous cheers and waving of handkerchiefs. When the excitement had in some degree subsided, he proceeded to address the meeting: who were never tired of listening to speeches, as no good people ever are. He held them enthralled for four hours and a quarter. Cinderella forgot the time, and hurried away so when she heard the first stroke of twelve, that her beautiful dress changed back to her old rags at the door, and she left one of her glass shoes behind. The Prince took it up, and vowed--that is, made a declaration before a magistrate; for he objected on principle to the multiplying of oaths--that he would only marry the charming creature to whom that shoe belonged.

He accordingly caused an advertisement to that effect to be inserted in all the newspapers: for, the advertisement duty, an impost most unjust in principle and most unfair in operation, did not exist in that country; neither was the stamp on newspapers known in that land-- which had as many newspapers as the United States, and got as much good out of them. Innumerable ladies answered the advertisement and pretended that the shoe was theirs; but, every one of them was unable to get her foot into it. The proud fine sisters answered it, and tried their feet with no greater success. Then, Cinderella, who had answered it too, came forward amidst their scornful jeers, and the shoe slipped on in a moment. It is a remarkable tribute to the improved and sensible fashion of the dress her grandmother had given her, that if she had not worn it the Prince would probably never have seen her feet.

The marriage was solemnized with great rejoicing. When the honeymoon was over, the King retired from public life, and was succeeded by the Prince. Cinderella, being now a queen, applied herself to the government of the country on enlightened, liberal, and free principles. All the people who ate anything she did not eat, or who drank anything she did not drink, were imprisoned for life. All the newspaper offices from which any doctrine proceeded that was not her doctrine, were burnt down. All the public speakers proved to demonstration that if there were any individual on the face of the earth who differed from them in anything, that individual was a designing ruffian and an abandoned monster. She also threw open the right of voting, and of being elected to public offices and of making the laws, to the whole of her sex; who thus came to be always gloriously occupied with public life and whom nobody dared to love. And they all lived happily ever afterwards.

Frauds on the Fairies once permitted, we see little reason why they may not come to this, and great reason why they may. The Vicar of Wakefield was wisest when he was tired of being always wise. The world is too much with us, early and late. Leave this precious old escape from it, alone.

From Household Words, Vol. 8, No. 184, Oct. 1, 1853.

You can see it in its original publication here at Google Books.

Grimm Legacies Presenter: Michael Hearn

2012-02-07T09:00:00.001-06:00

The Victorian Fairy Tale Book (Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library) by Michael Hearn is another fitting post which cross-matches between Charles Dickens' birthday today and the recent Grimm Legacies Symposium at Harvard. The book contains a story by Dickens among others. I am also putting images and links to some of Hearn's other books, but wanted to highlight The Victorian Fairy Tale Book today.

Book description:

From Robert Browning’s Pied Piper of Hamelin and William Makepeace Thackeray’s Rose and the Ring to Kenneth Grahme’s Reluctant Dragon and J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, here are seventeen classic stories and poems from the golden age of the English fairy tale. Some of them amuse, some enchant, some satirize and criticize, but each one —in the words of Laurence Houseman, author of the classic Rocking Horse Land—“is an expression of the joy of living.”

Accompanied by the illustrations from the original editions of these works—by such celebrated Victorian artists as Dante, Gabriel Rossetti, Maxfield Parrish, and Arthur Rackham—this collection will delight readers both young and old.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

The King of the Golden River
by Josh Ruskin

The Pied Piper of Hamelin
by Robert Browning

The Rose and the Ring
by William Makepeace Thackeray

The Magic Fish-Bone
by Charles Dickens

Melilot
by Henry Morley

The Fairies
by William Allingham

The Little Lame Prince and His Travelling-Cloak
by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Goblin Market
by Christina Rossetti

The Necklace of Princess Fiorimonde
by Mary De Morgan

The Golden Key
by George MacDonald

The Stolen Child
by William Butler Yeats

The Selfish Giant
by Oscar Wilde

The Brown Owl
by Ford Madox Ford

Rocking-Horse Land
by Laurence Housman

The Reluctant Dragon
by Kenneth Grahame

The Deliverers of Their Country
by E. Nesbit

From Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
by J.M. Barrie

About the Authors and Illustrators

Dickens Birthday: Social Dreaming: Dickens and the Fairy Tale by Elaine Ostry

2012-02-07T08:00:00.000-06:00

The black box/ book cover above is for Social Dreaming: Dickens and the Fairy Tale (Studies in Major Literary Authors) by Elaine Ostry. This should be of particular interest to those who want to read more about Dickens and fairy tales, of course.

Book description:

Dickens was known for his incredible imagination and fiery social protest. This book shows how Dickens used the fairy tale to express his political and social views and helped establish it as an important literary genre for the Victorian Public. Drawing on exciting new criticism by Jack Zipes, Maria Tartar and others, and covering all of Dickens's works, Social Dreaming sheds valuable socio-historical light on the fairy tale as a social tool. This book also includes a lengthy examination of Dickens's periodicals - the most popular middle-class publications in Victorian times - a largely neglected area of Dickens's criticism. The work will be of interest to Dickens scholars, students of Victorian Literature, and children's literature specialists.

And here's an excerpt from the introduction:

The young Charles Dickens did not know how lucky he was to have a nursemaid who scared him silly with her stories. Hut the older Dickens did know, and acknowledged his debt to his nurse, Mary Weller, in his article “Nurse’s Stories” (1860). Throughout his career, Dickens engaged in fairy tales on every level: he wrote them, defended them, alluded to them and used techniques of the genre in his essays and novels. According to Dickens, fancy was the imaginative faculty, and the fairy tale was a literary form that both exemplified and encouraged fancy. Throughout the hook I will be referring to both terms for, in defending fancy, Dickens defends the imagination and the fairy tale in the same breath. Dickens was not a writer who made philosophical or semantic distinctions between related words: for instance, he used the terms fancy, romance, and imagination loosely and interchangeably. He did not distinguish between fancy and imagination the way Coleridge did; indeed, Dickens’s view of fancy is that it is something often more serious than Coleridge’s “mode of memory” (Coleridge 167). According to Philip Collins, fancy “can mean to Dickens anything from colourful jollity and fun, to that imaginative sustenance which should nourish in both children and adults a wisdom of the heart, as well as provide an escape from present sorrow” (Education 91). John P. McGowan defines Dickens’s distinction between reality and fancy thus: “Reality is empirical, while fancy designates the nonmaterial mental processes associated with the romantic praise of the imagination (103). It was a state of mind, whimsical and humorous, in which “everyday reality is reseen imaginatively, even fantastically, but the result increases rather than diminishes our sense of the reality depicted” (H. Stone, “Introduction” 56).

And the Table of Contents:

Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Ch. 1 Nurse's Stories: Fairy Tales as Cultural Voices 1
Ch. 2 Frauds on the Fairies: Defending Fancy 29
Ch. 3 Monsters and Fairies, Homes and Wildernesses 59
Ch. 4 Dickens's Christmas "Fairy Tales of Home" 79
Ch. 5 The Fairy Tale in Dickens's Periodicals 105
App. A Survey of Criticism on Dickens and the Fairy Tale 131
App. B Perrault's Morals to "Cinderella" 137
Notes 139
Works Consulted 155
Index 193

Dickens Birthday: Nurse's Stories by Charles Dickens

2012-02-07T07:00:00.001-06:00

One of the most famous pieces concerning Dickens and fairy tales is his short essay describing some of the tales he heard from his nursemaid at a young age. A Bluebeard tale, Captain Murderer, is among the tales that scared him as a child and certainly affected his later writings. Here is the original text:

Nurse’s Stories

By Charles Dickens

THERE are not many places that I find it more agreeable to revisit when I am in an idle mood, than some places to which I have never been. For, my acquaintance with those spots is of such long standing, and has ripened into an intimacy of so affectionate a nature, that I take a particular interest in assuring myself that they are unchanged.

I never was in Robinson Crusoe’s Island, yet I frequently return there. The colony he established on it soon faded away, and it is uninhabited by any descendants of the grave and courteous Spaniards, or of Will Atkins and the other mutineers, and has relapsed into its original condition. Not a twig of its wicker houses remains, its goats have long run wild again, its screaming parrots would darken the sun with a cloud of many flaming colours if a gun were fired there, no face is ever reflected in the waters of the little creek which Friday swam across when pursued by his two brother cannibals with sharpened stomachs. After comparing notes with other travellers who have similarly revisited the Island and conscientiously inspected it, I have satisfied myself that it contains no vestige of Mr. Atkins’s domesticity or theology, though his track on the memorable evening of his landing to set his captain ashore, when he was decoyed about and round about until it was dark, and his boat was stove, and his strength and spirits failed him, is yet plainly to be traced. So is the hill-top on which Robinson was struck dumb with joy when the reinstated captain pointed to the ship, riding within half a mile of the shore, that was to bear him away, in the nine-and-twentieth year of his seclusion in that lonely place. So is the sandy beach on which the memorable footstep was impressed, and where the savages hauled up their canoes when they came ashore for those dreadful public dinners, which led to a dancing worse than speech-making. So is the cave where the flaring eyes of the old goat made such a goblin appearance in the dark. So is the site of the hut where Robinson lived with the dog and the parrot and the cat, and where he endured those first agonies of solitude, which—strange to say—never involved any ghostly fancies; a circumstance so very remarkable, that perhaps he left out something in writing his record? Round hundreds of such objects, hidden in the dense tropical foliage, the tropical sea breaks evermore; and over them the tropical sky, saving in the short rainy season, shines bright and cloudless.

Neither, was I ever belated among wolves, on the borders of France and Spain; nor, did I ever, when night was closing in and the ground was covered with snow, draw up my little company among some felled trees which served as a breastwork, and there fire a train of gunpowder so dexterously that suddenly we had three or four score blazing wolves illuminating the darkness around us. Nevertheless, I occasionally go back to that dismal region and perform the feat again; when indeed to smell the singeing and the frying of the wolves afire, and to see them setting one another alight as they rush and tumble, and to behold them rolling in the snow vainly attempting to put themselves out, and to hear their howlings taken up by all the echoes as well as by all the unseen wolves within the woods, makes me tremble.

I was never in the robbers’ cave, where Gil Blas lived, but I often go back there and find the trap-door just as heavy to raise as it used to be, while that wicked old disabled Black lies everlastingly cursing in bed. I was never in Don Quixote’s study, where he read his books of chivalry until he rose and hacked at imaginary giants, and then refreshed himself with great draughts of water, yet you couldn’t move a book in it without my knowledge, or with my consent. I was never (thank Heaven) in company with the little old woman who hobbled out of the chest and told the merchant Abudah to go in search of the Talisman of Oromanes, yet I make it my business to know that she is well preserved and as intolerable as ever. I was never at the school where the boy Horatio Nelson got out of bed to steal the pears: not because he wanted any, but because every other boy was afraid: yet I have several times been back to this Academy, to see him let down out of window with a sheet. So with Damascus, and Bagdad, and Brobingnag (which has the curious fate of being usually misspelt when written), and Lilliput, and Laputa, and the Nile, and Abyssinia, and the Ganges, and the North Pole, and many hundreds of places—I was never at them, yet it is an affair of my life to keep them intact, and I am always going back to them.

But, when I was in Dullborough one day, revisiting the associations of my childhood as recorded in previous pages of these notes, my experience in this wise was made quite inconsiderable and of no account, by the quantity of places and people—utterly impossible places and people, but none the less alarmingly real—that I found I had been introduced to by my nurse before I was six years old, and used to be forced to go back to at night without at all wanting to go. If we all knew our own minds (in a more enlarged sense than the popular acceptation of that phrase), I suspect we should find our nurses responsible for most of the dark corners we are forced to go back to, against our wills.

The first diabolical character who intruded himself on my peaceful youth (as I called to mind that day at Dullborough), was a certain Captain Murderer. This wretch must have been an off-shoot of the Blue Beard family, but I had no suspicion of the consanguinity in those times. His warning name would seem to have awakened no general prejudice against him, for he was admitted into the best society and possessed immense wealth. Captain Murderer’s mission was matrimony, and the gratification of a cannibal appetite with tender brides. On his marriage morning, he always caused both sides of the way to church to be planted with curious flowers; and when his bride said, ‘Dear Captain Murderer, I ever saw flowers like these before: what are they called?’ he answered, ‘They are called Garnish for house-lamb,’ and laughed at his ferocious practical joke in a horrid manner, disquieting the minds of the noble bridal company, with a very sharp show of teeth, then displayed for the first time. He made love in a coach and six, and married in a coach and twelve, and all his horses were milk-white horses with one red spot on the back which he caused to be hidden by the harness. For, the spot would come there, though every horse was milk-white when Captain Murderer bought him. And the spot was young bride’s blood. (To this terrific point I am indebted for my first personal experience of a shudder and cold beads on the forehead.) When Captain Murderer had made an end of feasting and revelry, and had dismissed the noble guests, and was alone with his wife on the day month after their marriage, it was his whimsical custom to produce a golden rolling-pin and a silver pie-board. Now, there was this special feature in the Captain’s courtships, that he always asked if the young lady could make pie-crust; and if she couldn’t by nature or education, she was taught. Well. When the bride saw Captain Murderer produce the golden rolling-pin and silver pie-board, she remembered this, and turned up her laced-silk sleeves to make a pie. The Captain brought out a silver pie-dish of immense capacity, and the Captain brought out flour and butter and eggs and all things needful, except the inside of the pie; of materials for the staple of the pie itself, the Captain brought out none. Then said the lovely bride, ‘Dear Captain Murderer, what pie is this to be?’ He replied, ‘A meat pie.’ Then said the lovely bride, ‘Dear Captain Murderer, I see no meat.’ The Captain humorously retorted, ‘Look in the glass.’ She looked in the glass, but still she saw no meat, and then the Captain roared with laughter, and suddenly frowning and drawing his sword, bade her roll out the crust. So she rolled out the crust, dropping large tears upon it all the time because he was so cross, and when she had lined the dish with crust and had cut the crust all ready to fit the top, the Captain called out, ‘I see the meat in the glass!’ And the bride looked up at the glass, just in time to see the Captain cutting her head off; and he chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and salted her, and put her in the pie, and sent it to the baker’s, and ate it all, and picked the bones.

Captain Murderer went on in this way, prospering exceedingly, until he came to choose a bride from two twin sisters, and at first didn’t know which to choose. For, though one was fair and the other dark, they were both equally beautiful. But the fair twin loved him, and the dark twin hated him, so he chose the fair one. The dark twin would have prevented the marriage if she could, but she couldn’t; however, on the night before it, much suspecting Captain Murderer, she stole out and climbed his garden wall, and looked in at his window through a chink in the shutter, and saw him having his teeth filed sharp. Next day she listened all day, and heard him make his joke about the house-lamb. And that day month, he had the paste rolled out, and cut the fair twin’s head off, and chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and salted her, and put her in the pie, and sent it to the baker’s, and ate it all, and picked the bones.

Now, the dark twin had had her suspicions much increased by the filing of the Captain’s teeth, and again by the house-lamb joke. Putting all things together when he gave out that her sister was dead, she divined the truth, and determined to be revenged. So, she went up to Captain Murderer’s house, and knocked at the knocker and pulled at the bell, and when the Captain came to the door, said: ‘Dear Captain Murderer, marry me next, for I always loved you and was jealous of my sister.’ The Captain took it as a compliment, and made a polite answer, and the marriage was quickly arranged. On the night before it, the bride again climbed to his window, and again saw him having his teeth filed sharp. At this sight she laughed such a terrible laugh at the chink in the shutter, that the Captain’s blood curdled, and he said: ‘I hope nothing has disagreed with me!’ At that, she laughed again, a still more terrible laugh, and the shutter was opened and search made, but she was nimbly gone, and there was no one. Next day they went to church in a coach and twelve, and were married. And that day month, she rolled the pie-crust out, and Captain Murderer cut her head off, and chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and salted her, and put her in the pie, and sent it to the baker’s, and ate it all, and picked the bones.

But before she began to roll out the paste she had taken a deadly poison of a most awful character, distilled from toads’ eyes and spiders’ knees; and Captain Murderer had hardly picked her last bone, when he began to swell, and to turn blue, and to be all over spots, and to scream. And he went on swelling and turning bluer, and being more all over spots and screaming, until he reached from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall; and then, at one o’clock in the morning, he blew up with a loud explosion. At the sound of it, all the milk-white horses in the stables broke their halters and went mad, and then they galloped over everybody in Captain Murderer’s house (beginning with the family blacksmith who had filed his teeth) until the whole were dead, and then they galloped away.

Hundreds of times did I hear this legend of Captain Murderer, in my early youth, and added hundreds of times was there a mental compulsion upon me in bed, to peep in at his window as the dark twin peeped, and to revisit his horrible house, and look at him in his blue and spotty and screaming stage, as he reached from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall. The young woman who brought me acquainted with Captain Murderer had a fiendish enjoyment of my terrors, and used to begin, I remember—as a sort of introductory overture—by clawing the air with both hands, and uttering a long low hollow groan. So acutely did I suffer from this ceremony in combination with this infernal Captain, that I sometimes used to plead I thought I was hardly strong enough and old enough to hear the story again just yet. But, she never spared me one word of it, and indeed commanded the awful chalice to my lips as the only preservative known to science against ‘The Black Cat’—a weird and glaring-eyed supernatural Tom, who was reputed to prowl about the world by night, sucking the breath of infancy, and who was endowed with a special thirst (as I was given to understand) for mine.

This female bard—may she have been repaid my debt of obligation to her in the matter of nightmares and perspirations!—reappears in my memory as the daughter of a shipwright. Her name was Mercy, though she had none on me. There was something of a shipbuilding flavour in the following story. As it always recurs to me in a vague association with calomel pills, I believe it to have been reserved for dull nights when I was low with medicine.

There was once a shipwright, and he wrought in a Government Yard, and his name was Chips. And his father’s name before him was Chips, and his father’s name before him was Chips, and they were all Chipses. And Chips the father had sold himself to the Devil for an iron pot and a bushel of tenpenny nails and half a ton of copper and a rat that could speak; and Chips the grandfather had sold himself to the Devil for an iron pot and a bushel of tenpenny nails and half a ton of copper and a rat that could speak; and Chips the great-grandfather had disposed of himself in the same direction on the same terms; and the bargain had run in the family for a long, long time. So, one day, when young Chips was at work in the Dock Slip all alone, down in the dark hold of an old Seventy-four that was haled up for repairs, the Devil presented himself, and remarked:

‘A Lemon has pips,
And a Yard has ships,
And I’ll have Chips!’

(I don’t know why, but this fact of the Devil’s expressing himself in rhyme was peculiarly trying to me.) Chips looked up when he heard the words, and there he saw the Devil with saucer eyes that squinted on a terrible great scale, and that struck out sparks of blue fire continually. And whenever he winked his eyes, showers of blue sparks came out, and his eyelashes made a clattering like flints and steels striking lights. And hanging over one of his arms by the handle was an iron pot, and under that arm was a bushel of tenpenny nails, and under his other arm was half a ton of copper, and sitting on one of his shoulders was a rat that could speak. So, the Devil said again:

‘A Lemon has pips,
And a Yard has ships,
And I’ll have Chips!’

(The invariable effect of this alarming tautology on the part of the Evil Spirit was to deprive me of my senses for some moments.) So, Chips answered never a word, but went on with his work. ‘What are you doing, Chips?’ said the rat that could speak. ‘I am putting in new planks where you and your gang have eaten old away,’ said Chips. ‘But we’ll eat them too,’ said the rat that could speak; ‘and we’ll let in the water and drown the crew, and we’ll eat them too.’ Chips, being only a shipwright, and not a Man-of-war’s man, said, ‘You are welcome to it.’ But he couldn’t keep his eyes off the half a ton of copper or the bushel of tenpenny nails; for nails and copper are a shipwright’s sweethearts, and shipwrights will run away with them whenever they can. So, the Devil said, ‘I see what you are looking at, Chips. You had better strike the bargain. You know the terms. Your father before you was well acquainted with them, and so were your grandfather and great-grandfather before him.’ Says Chips, ‘I like the copper, and I like the nails, and I don’t mind the pot, but I don’t like the rat.’ Says the Devil, fiercely, ‘You can’t have the metal without him—and he’s a curiosity. I’m going.’ Chips, afraid of losing the half a ton of copper and the bushel of nails, then said, ‘Give us hold!’ So, he got the copper and the nails and the pot and the rat that could speak, and the Devil vanished. Chips sold the copper, and he sold the nails, and he would have sold the pot; but whenever he offered it for sale, the rat was in it, and the dealers dropped it, and would have nothing to say to the bargain. So, Chips resolved to kill the rat, and, being at work in the Yard one day with a great kettle of hot pitch on one side of him and the iron pot with the rat in it on the other, he turned the scalding pitch into the pot, and filled it full. Then, he kept his eye upon it till it cooled and hardened, and then he let it stand for twenty days, and then he heated the pitch again and turned it back into the kettle, and then he sank the pot in water for twenty days more, and then he got the smelters to put it in the furnace for twenty days more, and then they gave it him out, red hot, and looking like red-hot glass instead of iron-yet there was the rat in it, just the same as ever! And the moment it caught his eye, it said with a jeer:

‘A Lemon has pips,
And a Yard has ships,
And I’ll have Chips!’

(For this Refrain I had waited since its last appearance, with inexpressible horror, which now culminated.) Chips now felt certain in his own mind that the rat would stick to him; the rat, answering his thought, said, ‘I will—like pitch!’

Now, as the rat leaped out of the pot when it had spoken, and made off, Chips began to hope that it wouldn’t keep its word. But, a terrible thing happened next day. For, when dinner-time came, and the Dock-bell rang to strike work, he put his rule into the long pocket at the side of his trousers, and there he found a rat—not that rat, but another rat. And in his hat, he found another; and in his pocket-handkerchief, another; and in the sleeves of his coat, when he pulled it on to go to dinner, two more. And from that time he found himself so frightfully intimate with all the rats in the Yard, that they climbed up his legs when he was at work, and sat on his tools while he used them. And they could all speak to one another, and he understood what they said. And they got into his lodging, and into his bed, and into his teapot, and into his beer, and into his boots. And he was going to be married to a corn-chandler’s daughter; and when he gave her a workbox he had himself made for her, a rat jumped out of it; and when he put his arm round her waist, a rat clung about her; so the marriage was broken off, though the banns were already twice put up—which the parish clerk well remembers, for, as he handed the book to the clergyman for the second time of asking, a large fat rat ran over the leaf. (By this time a special cascade of rats was rolling down my back, and the whole of my small listening person was overrun with them. At intervals ever since, I have been morbidly afraid of my own pocket, lest my exploring hand should find a specimen or two of those vermin in it.)

You may believe that all this was very terrible to Chips; but even all this was not the worst. He knew besides, what the rats were doing, wherever they were. So, sometimes he would cry aloud, when he was at his club at night, ‘Oh! Keep the rats out of the convicts’ burying-ground! Don’t let them do that!’ Or, ‘There’s one of them at the cheese down-stairs!’ Or, ‘There’s two of them smelling at the baby in the garret!’ Or, other things of that sort. At last, he was voted mad, and lost his work in the Yard, and could get no other work. But, King George wanted men, so before very long he got pressed for a sailor. And so he was taken off in a boat one evening to his ship, lying at Spithead, ready to sail. And so the first thing he made out in her as he got near her, was the figure-head of the old Seventy-four, where he had seen the Devil. She was called the Argonaut, and they rowed right under the bowsprit where the figure-head of the Argonaut, with a sheepskin in his hand and a blue gown on, was looking out to sea; and sitting staring on his forehead was the rat who could speak, and his exact words were these: ‘Chips ahoy! Old boy! We’ve pretty well eat them too, and we’ll drown the crew, and will eat them too!’ (Here I always became exceedingly faint, and would have asked for water, but that I was speechless.)

The ship was bound for the Indies; and if you don’t know where that is, you ought to it, and angels will never love you. (Here I felt myself an outcast from a future state.) The ship set sail that very night, and she sailed, and sailed, and sailed. Chips’s feelings were dreadful. Nothing ever equalled his terrors. No wonder. At last, one day he asked leave to speak to the Admiral. The Admiral giv’ leave. Chips went down on his knees in the Great State Cabin. ‘Your Honour, unless your Honour, without a moment’s loss of time, makes sail for the nearest shore, this is a doomed ship, and her name is the Coffin!’ ‘Young man, your words are a madman’s words.’ ‘Your Honour no; they are nibbling us away.’ ‘They?’ ‘Your Honour, them dreadful rats. Dust and hollowness where solid oak ought to be! Rats nibbling a grave for every man on board! Oh! Does your Honour love your Lady and your pretty children?’ ‘Yes, my man, to be sure.’ ‘Then, for God’s sake, make for the nearest shore, for at this present moment the rats are all stopping in their work, and are all looking straight towards you with bare teeth, and are all saying to one another that you shall never, never, never, never, see your Lady and your children more.’ ‘My poor fellow, you are a case for the doctor. Sentry, take care of this man!’

So, he was bled and he was blistered, and he was this and that, for six whole days and nights. So, then he again asked leave to speak to the Admiral. The Admiral giv’ leave. He went down on his knees in the Great State Cabin. ‘Now, Admiral, you must die! You took no warning; you must die! The rats are never wrong in their calculations, and they make out that they’ll be through, at twelve to-night. So, you must die!—With me and all the rest!’ And so at twelve o’clock there was a great leak reported in the ship, and a torrent of water rushed in and nothing could stop it, and they all went down, every living soul. And what the rats—being water-rats—left of Chips, at last floated to shore, and sitting on him was an immense overgrown rat, laughing, that dived when the corpse touched the beach and never came up. And there was a deal of seaweed on the remains. And if you get thirteen bits of seaweed, and dry them and burn them in the fire, they will go off like in these thirteen words as plain as plain can be:

‘A Lemon has pips,
And a Yard has ships,
And I’ve got Chips!’

The same female bard—descended, possibly, from those terrible old Scalds who seem to have existed for the express purpose of addling the brains of mankind when they begin to investigate languages—made a standing pretence which greatly assisted in forcing me back to a number of hideous places that I would by all means have avoided. This pretence was, that all her ghost stories had occurred to her own relations. Politeness towards a meritorious family, therefore, forbade my doubting them, and they acquired an air of authentication that impaired my digestive powers for life. There was a narrative concerning an unearthly animal foreboding death, which appeared in the open street to a parlour-maid who ‘went to fetch the beer’ for supper: first (as I now recall it) assuming the likeness of a black dog, and gradually rising on its hind-legs and swelling into the semblance of some quadruped greatly surpassing a hippopotamus: which apparition—not because I deemed it in the least improbable, but because I felt it to be really too large to bear—I feebly endeavoured to explain away. But, on Mercy’s retorting with wounded dignity that the parlour-maid was her own sister-in-law, I perceived there was no hope, and resigned myself to this zoological phenomenon as one of my many pursuers. There was another narrative describing the apparition of a young woman who came out of a glass-case and haunted another young woman until the other young woman questioned it and elicited that its bones (Lord! To think of its being so particular about its bones!) were buried under the glass-case, whereas she required them to be interred, with every Undertaking solemnity up to twenty-four pound ten, in another particular place. This narrative I considered—I had a personal interest in disproving, because we had glass-cases at home, and how, otherwise, was I to be guaranteed from the intrusion of young women requiring me to bury them up to twenty-four pound ten, when I had only twopence a week? But my remorseless nurse cut the ground from under my tender feet, by informing me that She was the other young woman; and I couldn’t say ‘I don’t believe you;’ it was not possible.

Such are a few of the uncommercial journeys that I was forced to make, against my will, when I was very young and unreasoning. And really, as to the latter part of them, it is not so very long ago—now I come to think of it—that I was asked to undertake them once again, with a steady countenance.

Originally in All the Year Round, Vol. 3, No. 72, Sept. 8, 1860.
Later reprinted in The Uncommercial Traveller [1860]

Dickens Birthday: Victorian Fairy Tales: The Revolt of the Fairies and Elves by Jack Zipes

2012-02-07T06:00:00.017-06:00

Victorian Fairy Tales: The Revolt of the Fairies and Elves is one book with some words on Dickens by the Grimm Legacies keynote speaker, Jack Zipes. For an excerpt about Dickens from the introduction, scroll further down this post.

Book description:

This is an illuminating, irresistible, and unique anthology of fairy tales written by some of the most notable writers of the Victorian period. Presented chronologically, the twenty-two tales in this volume, by such masters of storytelling as Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, and Edith Nesbitt, will enthrall readers of all ages. Most of the tales are accompanied by their original illustrations, including work by some of the best known illustrators of the time. Through his insightful introduction to the collection and his introduction to each tale, Jack Zipes brings to life the history of the development of the fairy tale, presents background material on the authors, and describes the role the fairy tale played in Victorian society.

From the introduction, Zipes's words on Dickens:

Dickens himself tended to incorporate fairy-tale motifs and plots primarily in his novels and particularly in his Christmas Books (1843-5). It is almost as though he did not want to tarnish the childlike innocence of the tales that he read as a young boy-tales which incidentally filled him with hope during his difficult childhood-by replacing them with new ones. But Dickens did use the fairy tale to make political and social statements, as in Prince Bull (1855) and The Thousand and One Humbugs (1855), and his regressive longings for the innocent bliss of fairyland are mad most evident in his essay A Christmas Tree (1850).

What was to be was Dickens' adult quest for fairy bliss in his novels, and it is not by chance that one of the last works he wrote toward the end of his life was "The Magic Fishbone" (1868)...Here Dickens parodied a helpless king as a salaried worker, who is accustomed to understanding everything with his reason. He becomes totally confused by the actions of his daughter Alicia, who receives a magic fishbone from a strange and brazen fairy named Grandmarina. Alicia does not use the fishbone when one would expect her to. Only when the king reveals to her that he can no longer provide for the family does Alicia make use of the magic fishbone. Suddenly Grandmarina arrives to bring about a comical ending in which the most preposterous changes occur. Nothing can be grasped through logic, and this is exactly Dickens' point: his droll tale-narrated from the viewpoint of a child-depends on the unusual deployment of fairy-tale motifs to question the conventional standards of society and to demonstrate that there is strength and soundness in the creativity of the younhg. The patriarchal figure of authority is at a loss to rule and provide, and the reversal of circumstances points to a need for change in social relations. The realm of genuine happiness that is glimpsed at the end of Dickens' fairy tale is a wish-fulfillment that he himself shared with many Victorians who were dissatisfied with social conditions in English society.

Table of Contents

Note on the Illustrations
Preface
Introduction

Uncle David's Nonsensical Story about Giants and Fairies
Catherine Sinclair

The King of the Golden River, or The Black Brothers
John Ruskin

Cinderella and the Glass Slipper
George Cruikshank

Heinrich; or, The Love of Gold
Alfred Crowquill

Bruno's Revenge
Lewis Carroll

The Magic Fishbone
Charles Dickens

Cinderella
Anne Isabella Ritchie

The Ogre Courting
Juliana Horatia Ewing

The Prince's Dream
Jean Ingelow

Charlie Among the Elves
Edward H. Knatchbull-Hugessen

A Toy Princess
Mary De Morgan

The Day Boy and the Night Girl
George Macdonald

All my Doing; or Red Riding-Hood Over Again
Harriet Louisa Childe-Pemberton

The Princess Nobody
Andrew Lang

The Story of a King's Daughter
Mary Louisa Molesworth

The Happy Prince
Oscar Wilde

Wooden Tony
Lucy Lane Clifford

The Potted Princess
Rudyard Kipling

The Rooted Lover
Laurence Housman

The Reluctant Dragon
Kenneth Grahame

The Last of the Dragons
Edith Nesbit

The Spell of the Magician's Daughter
Evelyn Sharp

Select Bibliography

Dickens Birthday: Happy 200th, Charles Dickens!

2012-02-07T05:01:00.021-06:00

Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens, a lifelong supporter of fairy tales. So I wanted to devote a few entries to him today in celebration.

We already know somewhat that Dickens loved Little Red Riding Hood. He once wrote: "Little Red Riding Hood was my first love. I felt that if I could have married Little Red Riding Hood I should have known perfect bliss."

But fairy tales informed more of his work, not directly with fairy tale retellings like some of his contemporaries, but he alluded to them frequently and even defended them when he felt it was necessary as some of today's entries will show.

And ever since I read Great Expectations and David Copperfield as a high school freshman (the boys in my carpool thought I was reading about our modern day magician), I've had a keen appreciation of his work. But, as much as I do appreciate it, I hope to never have to read Hard Times again since I had it assigned more times than I can count in many classes over the course of my formal education.

Morsel of the Day: The Ethics of Fairy Tales

2012-02-07T05:00:00.000-06:00

If you really read the fairy-tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other--the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales. The whole happiness of fairyland hangs upon a thread, upon one thread. Cinderella may have a dress woven on supernatural looms and blazing with unearthly brilliance; but she must be back when the clock strikes twelve. The king may invite fairies to the christening, but he must invite all the fairies or frightful results will follow. Bluebeard's wife may open all doors but one. A promise is broken to a cat, and the whole world goes wrong. A promise is broken to a yellow dwarf, and the whole world goes wrong. A girl may be the bride of the God of Love himself if she never tries to see him; she sees him, and he vanishes away. A girl is given a box on condition she does not open it; she opens it, and all the evils of this world rush out at her. A man and woman are put in a garden on condition that they do not eat one fruit: they eat it, and lose their joy in all the fruits of the earth.

by G. K. Chesterton in All Things Considered

The sin-complex : a critical study of English versions of the Grimms' Kinder- und Hausmärchen in the nineteenth century

2012-02-06T15:49:00.000-06:00

This is an odd place to start my coverage of Grimm Legacies, but one of the questions during Jack Zipes' Q&A Friday night brought up The Sin Complex by Martin James Sutton. I wanted to dedicate an entry to it since it is a great resource--and for now--it is available for free online. (I say for now since I have seen files like this disappear over and over again over the years, either removed or put behind firewalls.)

The Sin Complex was Sutton's thesis and is available for reading in PDF format on the University of Auckland's website. It is very much copyrighted and the published edition is long out of print (and quite expensive usually if you can find it). According to WorldCat, only 42 libraries in the US have a copy in their holdings, so getting a copy of it to study may be a challenge otherwise.

Abstract:

This thesis investigates the English versions of the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen (= KHM) published between the years 1823 and 1884, i.e. from the first translation by Edgar Taylor and David Jardine, German Popular Stories (1823 and 1826), to the first complete edition of the Grimms’ collection of stories and notes by Margaret Hunt, Grimm’s Household Tales (1884). Each of the first eleven chapters deals with a specific English edition and gives an analysis of one or more stories from that edition together with the texts of the German original. The two versions, German and English, are placed alongside each other in parallel columns to facilitate comparison. The twelfth chapter takes the final paragraph of one story, ‘Sneewittchen’ (KHM 53), and examines the seven different English versions of it in the editions discussed in the previous chapters. The final chapter compares the quality of English translations of the KHM in the nineteenth century with that of the Grimms’ sole venture in translating tales in the English language into German, viz. Wilhelm Grimm’s Irische Elfenmärchen (1826). Included as an appendix is a tabulated concordance of the contents of the twelve major editions discussed in this thesis. The investigation shows that the areas deemed to be sensitive ones by English translators were those which had to do with what Darton (Children’s Books in England, 1982, p.99) has singled out as ‘a deep-rooted sin-complex’ in England. Any story that touched on the issues of religious belief and superstition, the human body and its physical nature, violence and evil, and the intense emotions felt by human beings which prompt them to commit violent and destructive acts, was inevitably viewed with concern and mistrust, especially by purveyors of children’s literature in the nineteenth century. All these issues, as well as the element of fantasy which so readily admits and entertains them, were prone to considerable revision by successive translators of the KHM.

Later published (in shorter form) as Sutton, Martin James (1996). The sin-complex : a critical study of English versions of the Grimm's Kinder- und Hausmärchen in the nineteenth century. Kassel Germany: Brüder Grimm-Gesellschaft.

So go get your copy while you can if this topic interests you. The editing of Grimms (by themselves and others) is a fascinating topic and one that arose again and again at the symposium.

Grimm Legacies 2012: Getting Started on the Recap

2012-02-06T15:30:00.001-06:00

Yes, I have returned home to Nashville after spending the last few days at Harvard attending the Grimm Legacies Symposium. I am still processing all of the great material shared this weekend. I already know I won't be able to give the full coverage everyone would wish, but over the next few weeks I am going to glean what I can from my notes and post here.

Some of my posts will be about books mentioned--I get those questions too much not to post about the books here!--and some will be about the content of the talk themselves.

If you were a participant or audience member now reading this, please feel free to share in the comments or by email what you heard and thought. Overall, it was a great weekend and I am thankful to everyone who made it possible from the organizers at Harvard (Maria Tatar, Holly Hutchison and Deborah Foster), their supporters and all the participants and attendees. I always say these events wouldn't work without an audience, so every person sitting in a chair (or on the floor or leaning against a wall) was important to the event's success.

I met many people and enjoyed putting faces with names (and regular SurLaLune readers) so thank you for coming up and introducting yourselves, too.

And, for a light recap, you can also peruse the #GrimmLegacies tweets by Linda J. Lee and Cole Tucker on Twitter. Linda (and Donald Haase through one degree of separation) have persuaded me to try Twitter with the blog for a while. Regular readers here and some of the audience at Grimm Legacies know it will take a major change (either in me or it) for me to attempt Facebook again. You can follow me there at SurLaLuneHeidi.

Morsel of the Day: A Sense of the Numinous

2012-02-06T05:00:00.001-06:00

My own definition of fairy tale goes something like this: A fairy tale is a story-literary or folk-that has a sense of the numinous, the feeling or sensation of the supernatural or the mysterious. But, and this is crucial, it is a story that happens in the past tense, and a story that is not tied to any specifics. If it happens "at the beginning of the world," then it is a myth. A story that names a specific "real" person is a legend (even if it contains a magical occurrence). A story that happens in the future is a fantasy. Fairy tales are sometimes spiritual, but never religious.

by Marcia Lane in Picturing a Rose: A Way of Looking at Fairy Tales

Morsel of the Day: On Fairy Stories

2012-02-05T05:00:00.004-06:00

I said the sense "stories about fairies" was too narrow. It is too narrow, even if we reject the diminutive size, for fairy-stories are not in normal English usage stories about fairies or elves, but stories about Fairy, that is Faërie, the realm or state in which fairies have their being. Faerie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.

The definition of a fairy-story -- what it is, or what it should be -- does not, then, depend on any definition or historical account of elf or fairy, but upon the nature of Faërie: the Perilous Realm itself, and the air that blows in that country. I will not attempt to define that, nor to describe it directly. It cannot be done. Faërie cannot be caught in a net of words; for it is one of its qualities to be indescribable, though not imperceptible. It has many ingredients, but analysis will not necessarily discover the secret of the whole. Yet I hope that what I have later to say about the other questions will give some glimpses of my own imperfect vision of it. For the moment I will say only this: a "fairy-story" is one which touches on or uses Faërie, whatever its own main purpose may be: satire, adventure, morality, fantasy. Faërie itself may perhaps most nearly be translated by Magic - but it is magic of a peculiar mood and power, at the furthest pole from the vulgar devices of the laborious, scientific, magician. There is one proviso: if there is any satire present in the tale, one thing must not be made fun of, the magic itself. That must in that story be taken seriously, neither laughed at nor explained away.

by J. R. R. Tolkien in "On Fairy Stories" in Tree and Leaf

Free eBook: Gruesomely Grimm Zombie Tales by Wilhelm Grimm, Jakob Grimm and Todd Brown

2012-02-04T06:43:00.000-06:00

Gruesomely Grimm Zombie Tales by Wilhelm Grimm, Jakob Grimm and Todd Brown is free today in ebook format on Amazon--it's probably on the five day window of many free ebook promotions on Amazon these days. I am amused that the rewriting of classics into vampire/zombie/sea monster stories has hit the Grimms. (I'm not so sure they would have been though!)

Book description:

Over a century ago, The Brothers Grimm compiled an iconic collection of stories. Over forty years ago, American cinema was infected by the walking dead. A few years ago, classic literature fell to that same infection.

Now, it is time for the logical, but simultaneously unlikely, fusion of the often mistakenly labeled Grimm’s Fairy Tales to fall prey to the gaping maw of undeath.

Volume One of Gruesomely Grimm Zombie Tales offers up the first twenty-five stories…with a liberal dose of blood… gore…and of course…zombies.

Morsel of the Day: A Definition of the Literary Fairy Tale

2012-02-04T05:00:00.009-06:00

In his first short monograph, [Jens] Tismar set down the principles for a definition of the literary fairy tale (das Kunstmarchen) as genre: (1) it distinguishes itself from the oral folk tale (das Volksmarchen) in so far as it is written by a single identifiable author; (2) it is thus synthetic, artificial, and elaborate in comparison to the indigenous formation of the folk tale that emanates from communities and tends to be simple and anonymous; (the differences between the literary fairy tale and the oral folk tale do not imply that one genre is better than the other; (in fact, the literary fairy tale is not an independent genre but can only be understood and defined by its relationship to the oral tales as well as to the legend, novella, novel, and other literary fairy tales that it uses, adapts, and remodels during the narrative conception of the author.

by Jack Zipes, "Introduction: Towards the Definition of the Literary Fairy Tale" in The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales

New Book: The Great Sheep Shenanigans (Andersen Press Picture Books) by Peter Bently (Author), Mei Matsuoka (Illustrator)

2012-02-03T05:01:00.030-06:00

The Great Sheep Shenanigans (Andersen Press Picture Books) by Peter Bently (Author), Mei Matsuoka (Illustrator) is shipping from Amazon although it has an April release date. It was released in the UK last year, so the release date isn't too firm. I haven't read it yet but I am curious about it and it has been nominated for the Kate Greenaway Award which is always a bonus, too.

This one looked like fun but I can't find many illustrations to share. However, the publisher's site and Matsuoka's blog have Sheep Pom Pom images and instructions which are charming so I decided to share those instead.

Book description:

A lamb for my supper will taste mighty fine!" thought a wily old wolf by the name of Lou Pine. Poor Lou! In this fractured fairy tale, the wolf is stopped at the hedge by the flock's protector, Rambo the Ram. So Lou sets off to find a disguise that will let him sneak into the flock. He tries a fuzzy bathrobe, paint, and even cotton candy, but nothing works out. Can he scare Red Riding Hood's grandmother into knitting him a costume? Or will she—like everyone else—be able to thwart the wolf's plans?

Morsel of the Day: Fairy Tales Are Easier to Illustrate Than Define

2012-02-03T05:00:00.007-06:00

Fairytales, as we have come to recognise them, are perhaps easier to illustrate than to define: we tend to use the term loosely to mean ‘tales like Cinderella or Snow White’, and leave it at that. The term itself is as old as the late seventeenth century, appearing as the title of Mme d’Aulnoy’s Contes de fées in 1698, whereas the broader term folktale does not arrive till the early nineteenth century. A reasonable definition might however ask for ‘short, imaginative, traditional tales with a high moral and magical content’, essentially the qualities offered by the German term Maerchen, with its association with the world of Grimms’ fairytales. Such definitions are all too often doomed to admit exceptions: almost the first thing the first acknowledged modern European Cinderella does is murder her stepmother! But they are useful, nonetheless, and this one may be allowed to stand. The same vagueness as we might have about the definition of fairytales also tends to provide us with the assumption that they are somehow ‘timeless’ without actually being ‘old’. The assumption, too, that fairytales are somehow the province of children seems somehow to disqualify them from existing in antiquity, precisely because we tend to take it for granted that there were no children in antiquity — of the kind we somehow take for granted as the audience, readers or viewers of fairytale.

by Graham Anderson
From the introduction to Fairytale in the ancient world, p. 1

New Book: Señorita Gordita by Helen Ketteman and illustrated by Will Terry

2012-02-02T05:02:00.010-06:00

Señorita Gordita by Helen Ketteman and illustrated by Will Terry is a new release and a take on the Gingerbread Man family of tales.

Book description:

A Tex-Mex retelling of The Little Gingerbread Man, Senorita Gordita tells the tale of its titular character as she runs through the desert, boasting and fleeing from spiders, lizards, and other desert creatures.

About the Authors

Helen Ketteman is the author of more than nineteen picture books. She writes for children ranging from preschool through fourth or fifth grade, and especially enjoys telling fractured fairy tales. Helen earned her Associate of Arts degree from Young Harris College in Young Harris, GA, and her B.A. degree in English from Georgia State University in Atlanta. http://helenketteman.com

Will Terry grew up just outside the beltway of Washington, D.C., where he enjoyed scouting, sports, and playing cello in his HS orchestra. He studied illustration at BYU, developing his interests and skills in drawing and painting. Will has illustrated 17 children's books including The Three Little Gators and Armadilly Chili. He teaches illustration part time at UVSC and enjoys snowboarding with his three sons and a warm fire with his wife. www.willterry.com

The images are from Terry's site. And here is an excerpt from Helen Ketteman's website:

“Araña (spider) wiggled her legs as she set the gordita on a paper towel to drain. “You’re one tasty-looking gordita! I’m in for a treat.”

But that gordita hopped up. “Oh no, Araña! I’m one fast gordita! You can’t catch me!” And with a flip and a skip and and a zip-zoom-zip, the gordita raced out the door.

“Señorita Gordita! Come back!” called Araña, chasing after her.

But Señorita Gordita zipped through the desert till she came to a creosote bush.

Lagarto (lizard) was resting underneath. He opened one eye. “Hola, Señorita Gordita!” Come share my shade,” he said. “You look delicious…I mean, hot.”

Señorita Gordita jumped aside. “Oh no, amigo! I ran from Araña so fast, I left her spinning. I’ll run away from you, too. I’m putting the pedal to the metal. Adiós, Lagarto!” And with a flip and a skip, and a zip-zoom-zip, off she ran. Lagarto skittered after her.”

Morsel of the Day: Told by a Real Person

2012-02-02T05:00:00.000-06:00

A special pleasure arises from coming to terms, even if only partially, with the special qualities of each version of a tale within its own context, of fathoming the reasons for the impressive constancy in the basic outlines of many stories across the centuries, and of seeking to account for the equally perplexing variations that can sometimes occur. Abstract arguments can be helpful in disproving the notion that there can be a pure fairy tale form in which no adjustments to immediate cultural needs or pressures have taken place and in which no ulterior motive has prompted the telling and influenced the shaping of the story. But the best support for such reasoning may be to let a variety of tales speak for themselves. They tell us that fairy tales can and should he approached at more than one different angle. They lend weight to the view of the Italian philosopher, historian, and critic Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) that we possess only specific tellings of the tales and that we must analyze these tellings rather than hypothesize about what does not exist. Croce argued strenuously against what he regarded as arbitrary theories about Indian origins, primitive origins, and so forth of fairy tales. In analyzing individual tellings, we need to be as attentive as possible to the particularities of context, since whether a tale is recounted orally or written, it is told by a real person at a particular point in history. These tellers have their own personalities, time periods, sexes, social classes, and multiple communities.

by Jan M. Ziolkowski
From the introduction to Fairy Tales from Before Fairy Tales: The Medieval Latin Past of Wonderful Lies, p. 7

Bargain Ebooks: Last Day to Get The Fairy Tale Fiction of Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie

2012-02-02T00:41:00.000-06:00

The Fairy Tale Fiction of Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie edited by Heidi Anne Heiner (yours truly) is free as an ebook right now and today is the last day. I believe the sale is ending Thursday night at midnight PST.

And while we are here, February started a new list of 100 Kindle eBooks for $3.99 or less on Amazon. Somehow a fairy tale related book almost always gets on this monthly list. This time the book is Black as Snow by Nick Nolan for $1.99.

Book description:

Sebastian Black is a god amongst men: he’s devastatingly handsome and charismatic—and telepathic. So when his scheming mother, prophetess Kitty Black, announces that her son is the “next species of man,” the world begins taking notice. Together, Kitty and Sebastian forge a spiritual movement that celebrates “divine evolution” while warning of a mass extinction. But just as their fame and wealth are building, a tragedy befalls one of Sebastian’s disciples, and threats from Christian militants become too real to ignore.

Sebastian flees Los Angeles—and his mother—in search of peace and freedom. One by one he encounters “common” people who astonish him with their uncomplicated stories of love and compassion: an aging lesbian couple; a Mexican handyman; a shy, anorexic woman; a recovering meth addict; a gay teenager; and an unthinking college jock. Surprisingly, each has a profound effect upon this arrogant young “messiah.”

As Sebastian drifts further away from Kitty, she becomes more determined to preserve their celebrity status and glittering lifestyle. She sets out to reel Sebastian back to her—even if it means conspiring with his enemies, in particular a dashing young Spaniard who darkly mirrors Sebastian’s supernatural talents and good looks. But not even the telepathic Sebastian can foresee what happens next.

From the sleek penthouses of Century City to the savage coastline of Big Sur, Black as Snow twists the beloved fairy tale of Snow White into a suspense-filled story of intrigue, spirituality, and greed…and the unstoppable power of everyday love.

The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot by Margaret McNamara (Author), Mark Fearing (Illustrator)

2012-02-01T09:56:00.000-06:00

The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot by Margaret McNamara (Author), Mark Fearing (Illustrator) was released this past September. I haven't seen The Three Little Pigs done quite like this before!

Book description:

GREEP BOINK MEEP! The three little aliens are happily settling into their new homes when the Big Bad Robot flies in to crack and smack and whack their houses down! A chase across the solar system follows in this out-of-this-world version of the classic Three Little Pigs tale. Margaret McNamara (How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?) and Mark Fearing (The Book that Eats People) have created a humorous and visually stunning story that kids will adore—and that will introduce them to the planets and the solar system. The endpapers even include a labeled diagram of all the planets.

If you look closely at the endpapers, you'll see the houses on the planets.

Morsel of the Day: The Literary Fairy Tale

2012-02-01T05:00:00.001-06:00

From The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: Introduction by Jack Zipes, p. xi-xii:

Since we know that many different kinds of storytelling existed in antiquity before oral wonder tales came into existence, and since we know that there were many kinds of wondrous oral and literary tales that served to form the hybrid “species” of the literary fairy tale, we can trace a historical evolution of all these tales by examining how bits and pieces of story accumulated in different cultures and then eventually gelled to form a genre. We cannot say with historical precision when the literary fairy tale evolved, but we can trace motifs and elements of the literary fairy tale to numerous types of storytelling and stories of antiquity that contributed to the formation of a particular branch of telling and writing tales. In the western European tradition, this branching occurred sometime in the fourteenth century and fifteenth centuries and led to a special literary genre in the sixteenth century that we today call the literary fairy tale.

10 Totally Psychotic Fairy Tales that Hollywood Should Film Next

2012-01-31T23:00:00.000-06:00

This is fun: 10 Totally Psychotic Fairy Tales that Hollywood Should Film Next. I'm not going to list them all here since the authors actually did some homework and found some nice, grim tales for their list.

Everybody knows that Hollywood has gone fairy-tale crazy. There are dueling Snow White movies and competing Beauty and the Beast shows, plus a ton of others. But eventually, they're going to run out of Disney-approved fairytales, and they're going to have to dig into... the weird stuff. You know, the ones where young girls get their hands chopped off and tons of cute animals kill each other. And we can't wait.

Okay, so The Girl Without Hands is one of their picks. You'll have to click through to see the rest.

Anyway, it's fun to play the game of what fairy tales should be made into movies. I'm just disappoint The Robber Bridegroom (or any Bluebeard variant) didn't make the list. It's not a movie I would personally want to see (I'm too much of a wimp) but it is a perfect film idea and deserves more recognition.

France Month: La belle au bois dormant and Cendrillon Illustrated by Candy Bird

2012-01-31T09:11:00.000-06:00

La belle au bois dormant and Cendrillon are both illustrated by Candy Bird. They are very modern in illustration style and since I only had a few images from each, I decided to share both today. I admit that I was charmed by one of the Cinderella illustrations because it is a direct salute to Edmund Dulac, one of my favorite Golden Age Illustrators. I'll put a comparison image below, too.

(Here's the Dulac I promised. See the tribute?)

New Book: Princess Charming by Nicole Jordan

2012-01-31T05:01:00.011-06:00

Princess Charming by Nicole Jordan is a new Cinderella inspired romance novel released today. This is a start to a new series by Jordan but it is unclear if any more fairy tale characters will serve as inspiration, see below. There is never a loss for new Cinderella romances, but the bigger name romance authors are taking up the fairy tale gauntlet more than in recent years just like in every other area of entertainment, it seems.

Book description:

In Nicole Jordan’s dazzling new Regency series, the scandalous Wilde cousins seek true love by imitating history’s legendary lovers . . . beginning with Ashton Wilde, Marquis of Beaufort, who takes on the daunting role of Prince Charming to an unlikely Cinderella.

Thanks to the mischievous meddling of his matchmaking sister, Ashton Wilde meets a damsel in distress during the midnight magic of a lavish ball. But Maura Collyer isn’t looking for a prince—or an intimate pairing with any member of the scandalous noble Wilde family.

Intrigued by Maura’s beauty and daring, Ash is determined to aid in the rescue of her beloved stallion, gambled away by her wicked stepmother to an evil viscount. As their adventure becomes rife with peril and passion, Ash suspects he’s found his heart’s desire.

Even though her dearest friend may be her self-proclaimed fairy godmother, Maura is mortified at being pushed into a romance with a notorious rake such as Ash. Dashing and charming, he comes to Maura’s rescue just in time to help her steal back her precious horse. As they flee across the countryside, she can’t resist his sweet seduction. But is her prince playing a role in a fairy tale to test an improbable theory, or is the love awakening in her heart proof of her own happily ever after?

From one of Jordan's promotional emails, which leaves the question of whether or not other fairy tale characters will inspire the series:

In Princess Charming¸ our erstwhile hero, Ashton Wilde, Marquis of Beaufort, endears himself to an unlikely Cinderella, Maura Collyer, by helping her reclaim her beloved stallion, which her wicked stepmother sold to an evil viscount. As they flee across the countryside, their adventure becomes rife with peril and passion. Ah, yes, passion. You see, this new series finds the five scandalous Wilde cousins seeking true love by imitating history’s timeless legendary lovers—in fairy tales, Shakespeare’s plays, even romantic Greek myths.

Cinderella on TV: The Finder

2012-01-30T23:02:00.002-06:00

I missed posting about another fairy tale inspired TV show last week. The new series, The Finder, from the producers of Bones, aired its third episode, A Cinderella Story this past Thursday. It was a playful and deadly play on the Cinderella story, heavily referencing the tale but still an interesting interpretation with an unexpected twist. You can watch the show on Fox and Amazon if you live in the release zones.

Simple plot description follows but I have put a full spoiler plot description at the bottom of this post:

A missing shoe leads to an unlikely fairy tale ending.

A few more previews:

Spoiler ALERT!

Here's the full Cinderella plot from the episode:

Leo and Walter help a math geek find a woman he met at a bar who left behind a ruined note and a shoe as the only clues to finding her. At first they think they are on a romantic hunt for a Cinderella who may be in danger. Eventually they realize they are hunting for a femme fatale/serial killer who baits men by leaving shoes and notes behind, ultimately killing them in her search for Prince Charming.

Free eBook: The Fairy Tale Fiction of Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie

2012-01-30T10:36:00.000-06:00

The Fairy Tale Fiction of Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie edited by Heidi Anne Heiner (yours truly) is free as an ebook for the next four days, I believe ending Thursday night at midnight PST.

If you haven't read any of Ritchie's work, I obviously find her handling of fairy tales rather fascinating. There is no magic but the stories are faithful yet imaginative retellings. And when one considers they were written as contemporary fiction in their time, they take on another dimension of interest, too.

Book description:

FAIRY tales have long been an important part of the world's history and literature, especially for women whose voices have often been trivialized, ignored or made anonymous. Old wives' tales, fairy tales, and folklore-whatever terms are chosen-are part of our earliest literature and have often provided the medium for women's voices, for women's stories. Like the women of the French Salons who used traditional stories to create and recreate tales that both inspired and criticized their world and its expectations, women writers have long been recording and rewriting fairy tales for their own generations. The practice continues up to current times and will easily continue on past our own generations into a distant future.

One such author from the Victorian era was Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, the eldest daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray. Ritchie rewrote nine fairy tales into short stories and novellas, exploring and reinterpreting the tales for the audience of her time. She wasn't the first to do so--and certainly not the last--but she firmly belongs in this literary legacy, one in which she has all too often been overlooked.

Edited with a new introduction by Heidi Anne Heiner, this volume includes Anne Thackeray Ritchie's nine short stories and novellas from Five Old Friends and Bluebeard's Keys and Other Stories: "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood," "Cinderella," "Beauty and the Beast," "Little Red Riding Hood," "Jack the Giant-killer," "Bluebeard's Keys," "Riquet á la Houppe," "Jack and the Bean-stalk," and "The White Cat."

Additional materials include Ritchie's introduction to The Fairy Tales of Madame D'Aulnoy and "Bluebeard's Ghost" by William Makepeace Thackeray, Ritchie's father.

New Book: Princess of the Wild Swans by Diane Zahler

2012-01-30T05:01:00.025-06:00

Princess of the Wild Swans by Diane Zahler is released tomorrow, her third fairy tale retelling and this time of Wild Swans/Six Swans, etc. And there is to be a fourth one, too. A nice little library to have! This one has a few versions that are equally popular from Andersen and Grimms, primarily, that it is always hard to choose which tale title to use. But it's a wonderful tale and I am looking forward to reading this one sometime, hopefully soon. (And, by the way, you can order a new hardcover of this one and get the previous hardcovers at a bargain price on Amazon if the inventory lasts on them. Look for the bargain links on the book pages.)

I know so many people who grew up loving this tale or discovering it and falling in love with it through Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest. And it is surprising how many novel length retellings there have been over the years in comparison to how obcure the tale is to the general population. (Same goes with Twelve Dancing Princesses, but Six Swans wins for having novelizations that are decades old, too.) But they are not frequent and Zahler's book is a welcome addition.

Since my TBR pile is high and I have to purchase this one yet, I think I will be waiting a few months until I get to start working on the SurLaLune Six/Wild Swans anthology. I've been collecting them for years and have to publish a collection even if hardly anyone buys it! I think this novel will be a perfect inspiration to kick off the final collecting and editing process.

Book description:

Princess Meriel’s brothers have been cursed. A terrible enchantment—cast by their conniving new stepmother—has transformed the handsome princes into swans. They now swim forlornly on a beautiful heart-shaped lake that lies just beyond the castle walls.

Meriel will do whatever it takes to rescue her beloved brothers. But she must act quickly. If Heart Lake freezes, her brothers will be forced to fly south or perish.

With help from her newfound friends Riona and Liam—a pretty half-witch and her clever brother—Meriel vows to finish a seemingly impossible task. If she completes it, her brothers may be saved.

But if she fails . . . all will be lost.

France Month: Books Illustrated by Sibylle Delacroix

2012-01-30T05:00:00.000-06:00

The month is almost over and I could only find one or two images at most for books illustrated by Sibylle Delacroix so I decided to make a post devoted to her fairy tale work instead of one book by her for day's France Month. Most of the images came from her website.

La Belle au Bois dormant

La Barbe Bleue

Hänsel et Gretel

Peau d'Âne

Portraits de contes Projet de recueil de contes illustré par des portraits (inédit)

France Month: Fleur de Cendre by Annick Combier (Auteur), Anne Romby (Illustrateur)

2012-01-29T05:00:00.001-06:00

Fleur de Cendre by Annick Combier (Auteur), Anne Romby (Illustrateur) is a French picture book of a Japanese Cinderella story. Marvelous! I am an Anne Romby fan. This book gives more evidence as to why she deserves my devotion. I don't own this one, but I just may have to get it someday.

I borrowed these page images on Amazon.fr, FNAC.com, and Papier de Soie. There are a few repeats, but they show layout vs. details so I included both.

You can see more images on the exhibition page.

Book description:

C’est l’histoire d’une jeune fille adorable ; elle est aussi belle que douce, intelligente et généreuse… Mais, pour son malheur, son père qu’elle aime tant s’est remarié avec une femme terrible qui la déteste. L’odieuse marâtre s’est installée dans la maison avec ses deux filles aussi sottes et vaniteuses que disgraciées… Du soir au matin, Fleur de Cendre est condamnée à les servir et à supporter leur méchanceté. Jusqu’au jour où une grande fête est annoncée chez le prince…Cette histoire vous rappelle quelque chose ?…

Goldilocks in US Politics

2012-01-28T10:16:00.000-06:00

I am not going to get political here on the blog--we need a few places to escape campaigns, don't we? But I was amused by this headline and the news that the GOP candidates have been invoking Goldilocks recently.

From Mitt Romney Upbeat After Strong Debate, Compares Newt Gingrich To 'Goldilocks':

"Speaker Gingrich said the debate before last night -- that the crowd wasn't allowed to cheer, and so he couldn't do so well because the crowd was too quiet," said Romney, referring to the NBC News debate where the audience was asked to hold its applause. "Then last night, he said the crowd was too loud. It's like Goldilocks. This porridge is too hot, this porridge is too cold."

But Romney's not alone, from the same article:

Former Sen. Rick Santorum also recently invoked Goldilocks, saying Gingrich was "hot, radioactive" and Romney was "cold, timid" -- but he was "just right."

Okay, candidates. How about Sleeping Beauty next? That one should be easy! Emperor's New Clothes and Cinderella are way too easy. Extra points and my vote if you can invoke Bluebeard or Robber Bridegroom! Or Twelve Dancing Princesses--now that would be amazing.

TV: Castle and Little Red Riding Hood

2012-01-28T10:06:00.000-06:00

Castle, the ABC series, is drawing some inspiration from fairy tales for the 17th episode of its 4th season with an episode titled, "Once Upon a Crime." From Castle Scoop: Sarah Jane Morris Gets Involved In a Fairy Grimm Episode:

ABC’s Castle will kinda-sorta — but not really — crossover with the network’s freshman hit Once Upon a Time when Sarah Jane Morris guest-stars in a fairytale-flavored installment later this winter.

In this season’s 17th episode — titled, natch, “Once Upon a Crime” — Morris will play Leslie Morgan, a woman whose sister, Amy, was found dead in Central Park. The peculiar details of this quite unhappy ending? Amy was dressed as Little Red Riding Hood and the victim of an apparent wolf attack.

It looks like this will most likely air in the US on February 27th unless that timeslot gets preempted for something else and it gets bumped a week or two.

The series previously had a Goldilocks inspiration in its second season in the episode titled, "The Third Man." It was cleverly done so I am hoping this one is as witty, but I doubt it will be as subtle.

France Month: Cendrillon by Charles Perrault and illustrated by Charlotte Gastaut

2012-01-28T09:29:00.000-06:00

I already shared Charlotte Gastaut's Princess and the Pea today with links to her site and blog. So I will let her Cendrillon speak for itself.

France Month: La princesse au petit pois by Hans Christian Andersen and illustrated by Charlotte Gastaut

2012-01-28T09:10:00.000-06:00

La princesse au petit pois by Hans Christian Andersen and illustrated by Charlotte Gastaut is another Princess and the Pea, of course. Gastaut has illustrated many fairy tales and I have already featured Les fées by Charles Perrault and illustrated by Charlotte Gastaut. She has many more books, but alas I could not find good images for many of them although I am also sharing her Cinderella in a separate post today. There is a hidden page on her under construction website to see some unlabeled images and she has a blog where she occasionally shares more including some murals. I like her clean style.

Book description:

« Il était une fois un prince qui voulait se marier. Hélas aucune des jeunes filles qu on lui présentait ne trouvait grâce à ses yeux. Un soir, par un terrible orage, une jeune fille frappa à la porte du château. S'agissait-il, enfin, de la princesse tant recherchée ? » Trop d'enfants aujourd hui ne connaissent plus les contes classiques. Ces contes qui, pourtant, aident à grandir, enrichissent l imaginaire de milles et une créatures, fées, princesses ou dragons et apportent à la vie une moral pleine d humour où les méchants sont punis et les plus petits récompensés. Des contes qui donnent envie d apprendre à lire et de plus tard raconter, transmettre l histoire à ses enfants ! Pour faciliter l accès à cette formidable richesse de la littérature jeunesse, voilà une collection à petit prix, avec des histoires magnifiquement illustrées et surtout des textes, adaptés aux enfants, qui ont su garder l'impertinence, l ambiance et les tournures si particulières des contes de fées...

Scottish Ballet: Sleeping Beauty

2012-01-27T11:46:00.001-06:00

This time I have video of a current ballet: The Scottish Ballet's production of Sleeping Beauty. This one is filled with vibrant, bright colors and looks like fun. Too bad I am more than an ocean away... The production is touring Scotland, so it is more accessible if you are there.

This is one of my favorite ballets thanks to the music, I admit. I was raised on Nutcracker (or I raised myself on it and drove the parental units crazy wearing out recordings of it as a preteen) so Tchaikovsky will always be important to me. There's also a gallery on their site of images, but I don't have time to import them here today. It looks like a gorgeous production.

There is also video of a webcast they did backstage of a performance. This is a tech savvy ballet company!

Scottish Ballet: The Sleeping Beauty 2011 - Trailer from Scottish Ballet on Vimeo.

France Month: Les trois petits cochons by Sylvie Bessard (Auteur), Agnès Lestrade (de) (Auteur)

2012-01-27T05:00:00.010-06:00

Les trois petits cochons by Sylvie Bessard (Auteur), Agnès Lestrade (de) (Auteur)

Book description:

Il était une fois trois petits cochons qui voulaient construire leurs maisons. Le premier construisit sa maison avec de la paille, le deuxième avec du bois, et le troisième avec des briques. Les deux frères du troisième petit cochon se moquèrent de lui, mais, quand le loup vint à souffler sur leurs maisons pour les faire voler en éclats, ils furent bien contents d’aller trouver refuge dans la maison de briques...

Mirror, Mirror (2012): New International Trailer and a Featurette

2012-01-27T01:38:00.000-06:00

That's the new 2-minute international trailer for Mirror, Mirror (2012). And I just realized we are only 7 weeks away from release since it is out on March 16th. Wow. I am expecting the media coverage to start boosting soon and I will try to share a good amount of it here.

I am trying to decide how much Snow White discussion to have on the blog. I discussed a lot when I released Sleeping Beauties: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Tales From Around the World. But there is always more.

And while we are here, a new featurette, too.

Bargain Book: Today Only: A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz

2012-01-26T10:55:00.000-06:00

A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz is the Amazon Deal of the Day today for $.99. The price will go back up at midnight PST. Schlitz wrote the Newbery Medal winner, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village.

Book description:

Maud Flynn is known at the orphanage for her impertinence. So when the charming Miss Hyacinth chooses her to take home, the girl is pleased but baffled, until she learns of her new role: helping to stage elaborate séances for bereaved patrons. As Maud is drawn deeper into the deception, playing the "secret child," she is torn between her need to please and her growing conscience. It takes a shocking betrayal to make clear just how heartless her so-called guardians are. Filled with fascinating details of turn-of-the-century spiritualism and page-turning suspense, this novel from Newbery Medalist Laura Amy Schlitz features a feisty heroine whom readers will not soon forget.

No, this isn't directly folklore related, but is on the slant with the subject matter--and cool title--and so I thought it crossed over well in interests for many of you dear readers.

New Book: Hans My Hedgehog: A Tale from the Brothers Grimm by Kate Coombs and John Nickle

2012-01-26T05:02:00.036-06:00

Hans My Hedgehog: A Tale from the Brothers Grimm by Kate Coombs (Adapter), Brothers Grimm (Author), John Nickle (Illustrator) was released this past Tuesday.

I haven't seen copy in person, but I'm always thrilled with a new picture book featuring one of the less popular fairy tales. Hans My Hedgehog is a sentimental favorite of many fairy tale fans and hopefully this book will also introduce the tale to a new audience.

Book description:

A classic tale of love and acceptance from the Brothers Grimm is beautifully rendered in this magical retelling.Hans is an unusual boy. Born a hedgehog from the waist up, he knows what it’s like to truly be an outcast. Even his amazing fiddle playing can’t help him fit in. So Hans flees to the forest with his herd of loyal pigs and only his music to keep him company. But then a most unusual thing happens: When Hans crosses paths with two kings with two lovely daughters, his luck starts to change. Will this lonely soul find true love after all?

This lively and lyrical retelling of the classic Grimm’s tale, paired with lush, detailed illustrations, reminds us of the power of music, the importance of belonging, and the transformative effect of love.

The reviews for the book so far are great--Kirkus starred it--and there is an interview with Kate Coombs at The Enchanted Inkpot this week, too. Most of the interview is about Coombs work as an author, but she answered a few questions about fairy tales, too. Here's an excerpt:

I don't see as many picture book fairy tales these days. Why is that?

Hans My Hedgehog is kind of an anomaly because very few picture book retellings of fairy tales are being published right now, after a heyday that took place 20 or so years ago. Many parents want their children to jump into reading chapter books right out of kindergarten. They seem to think that picture books are babyish. This is unfortunate because picture books for children in grades 1-3 can make a wonderful bridge and hook kids into wanting to read more.

Could you talk a little about fairy tale retellings for middle grade and young adult readers?

Even as the picture book fairy tale is showing signs of becoming extinct, novelizations for MG/YA are really taking off. So at least we aren't losing the stories altogether! I would even say that the 1990s and this new century have brought a golden age of fairy tale retellings for older children. For example, consider the incredible variety of Cinderella retellings: you get Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, which famously imagines an explanation for Cinderella's passiveness; you get a lesbian Cinderella tale in Malinda Lo's Ash; and you get a cyborg Cinderella in Marissa Meyer's new book, Cinder. I love seeing what different authors do with the same story bones. The retelling movement is starting to reach beyond European tales more frequently, I am happy to say. Grace Lin's book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, draws on Chinese folklore, and Jasmine Richard's The Book of Wonders uses Scheherazade and Sinbad to create something new. I can't wait to see what happens next.

What advice do you have for someone planning on doing an MG/YA retelling?

The retellings are coming fast and furiously, so as an author, you have to be careful what you choose to retell. A few years ago, I had just about finished a novelization of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," a story I chose because no one had done much with it, when someone else beat me to the punch. Since then, another half dozen versions have come out! I won't even tell you the story I'm tinkering with now. Suffice it to say, it's a lesser known fairy tale.

Whatever you decide to retell, you should work on giving your version a unique spin, the way Meyer did with Cinder, the way Jane Yolen did recently in her Appalachian Snow White retelling, Snow in Summer. It isn't enough to retell a story: you have to make it your own. That's really what Gail Carson Levine did with the Cinderella story. That and her fine characterization are what keep Ella Enchanted in print.

I'm hoping this fairy tale popularity will inspire publishers to give us some new beautiful fairy tale picture books. I have a lot of more obscure but interesting ones on my wishlist actually after working on all of these SurLaLune compilations and translating a few. There are some great Cinderellas out there as well as Beauty and the Beast and Snow White.

New Book: Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights by Marina Warner

2012-01-26T05:01:00.000-06:00

Marina Warner has a new book out this year, Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights, which has already been released in the UK but won't be available in the US until March. But the press is hot on it in the UK, so I wanted to share today. If you are in the UK, you can have joy now and order the book right away. In the US, you can order the book from the UK now or wait until March. I'm waiting to spare my budget, of course, but I must admit I prefer the UK cover (the one on the left). What about you?

Book description (UK edition):

From the Inside Flap

Magic is not simply a matter of the occult arts, but a whole way of thinking, of dreaming the impossible. As such it has tremendous force in opening the mind to new realms of achievement: imagination precedes the fact. It used to be associated with wisdom, understanding the powers of nature, and with technical ingenuity that could let men do things they had never dreamed of before.

The supreme fiction of this magical thinking is The Arabian Nights, with its flying carpets, hidden treasure and sudden revelations. Translated into French and English in the early days of the Enlightenment, this became a best-seller among intellectuals, when it was still thought of in the Arab world as a mere collection of folk tales. For thinkers of the West the book's strangeness opened visions of transformation: dreams of flight,speaking objects, virtual money, and the power of the word to bring about change.Its tales create a poetic image of the impossible, a parable of secret knowledge and power. Above all they have the fascination of the strange - the belief that true knowledge lies elsewhere, in a mysterious realm of wonder.

As part of her exploration into the prophetic enchantments of the Nights Marina Warner retells some of the most wonderful and lesser known stories. She explores the figure of the dark magician or magus, from Solomon to the wicked uncle in Aladdin; the complex vitality of the jinn, or genies; animal metamorphoses and flying carpets.Her narrative reveals that magical thinking, as conveyed by these stories, governs many aspects of experience, even now.In this respect, the east and west have been in fruitful dialogue. Writers and artists in every medium have found themselves by adopting Oriental disguise. With startling originality and impeccable research, this ground-breaking book shows how magic, in the deepest sense, helped to create the modern world, and how profoundly it is still inscribed in the way we think today.

About the Author

Marina Warner spent her early years in Cairo, and was educated at a convent in Berkshire, and then in Brussels and London, before studying modern languages at Oxford. She is an internationally acclaimed cultural historian, critic, novelist and short story writer. From her early books on the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc, to her bestselling studies of fairy tales and folk stories, From the Beast to the Blonde and No Go the Bogeyman, her work has explored different figures in myth and fairy tale and the art and literature they have inspired. She lectures widely in Europe, the United States and the Middle East, and is currently Professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies, University of Essex. She was appointed CBE in 2008.

And from Stranger Magic by Marina Warner: review: Sameer Rahim revels in 1,001 tales that last a lifetime, reading Marina Warner's Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights, the first few paragraphs to whet your interest:

The earliest translations of The Arabian Nights appeared around the same time as the Enlightenment philosopher David Hume began debunking Biblical miracles from the “ignorant and barbarous nations” of the East. As the West became more rationalist, Nights-fever caught on among countless artists for whom the tales were an outlet for all sorts of fantasies, both magical and sexual.

Mozart was given a copy by his Italian landlady and picked up themes for his oriental opera The Abduction from the Seraglio; Coleridge read the tales with a “strange mixture of obscure dread and intense desire”, the same feelings he evokes in “Kubla Khan”; and Dickens’s homage to the Nights can be found in A Christmas Carol, when Scrooge tries to trap the Ghost of Christmas Past with a candle extinguisher, like the Fisherman coaxing the Genie back into his magic lamp.

Marina Warner’s Stranger Magic ranges widely, and somewhat wildly, from the earliest Western interpretations to Hollywood films such as The Thief of Baghdad. She takes 15 of her favourite tales and spins a knowledgeable but rather haphazard cultural history.

Warner does not read Arabic and shows little interest in the linguistic texture of the tales – how, for example, any attempt to imitate the rhymed, repetitive prose leads to monstrosities like Richard Burton’s Victorian version, but how turning it into neat English does not reflect its oral origins. She also makes a point of denying their Arab-ness: The Nights, she writes, “has no known author or named authors, no settled shape or length, no fixed table of contents, no definite birthplace or linguistic origin”. But while the stories are certainly universal, they are also firmly rooted in the medieval Islamic world.

France Month: Raiponce illustrated by Princess Camcam

2012-01-26T05:00:00.009-06:00

Minicontes classiques : Raiponce par Anne Royer (Auteur), D'après les Frères Grimm (Auteur), Princesse Camcam (Illustrations) is the first Rapunzel I've featured for France month. Yes, the tale is German but there are some early French Rapunzels around, too. (There's a few in my Rapunzel and Other Maiden in the Tower Tales From Around the World). However, the tale isn't well-represented in French picture books beyond the blitz of Disney tie-ins. This book is illustrated by Princess Camcam who also illustrated the brunette Cinderella I shared a few weeks ago.

Book description:

« Il était une fois un homme et une femme qui attendaient leur premier enfant. Derrière leur maison, il y avait un jardin où poussaient de magnifiques fleurs. Quand la femme les aperçut, elle ne voulut rien manger d autre que ces fleurs nommées raiponce. Or ce jardin appartenait à une redoutable magicienne... » Trop d'enfants aujourd'hui ne connaissent plus les contes classiques. Ces contes qui, pourtant, aident à grandir, enrichissent l imaginaire de milles et une créatures, fées, princesses ou dragons et apportent à la vie une morale pleine d'humour où les méchants sont punis et les plus petits récompensés. Des contes qui donnent envie d'apprendre à lire et plus tard de raconter, transmettre l'histoire à ses enfants ! Pour faciliter l'accès à cette formidable richesse de la littérature jeunesse, voilà une collection à petit prix, avec des histoires magnifiquement illustrées et surtout des textes, adaptés aux enfants, qui ont su garder l impertinence, l ambiance et les tournures si particulières des contes de fées...

Hollywood Report: ABC's 'Beauty and the Beast' Ordered to Pilot

2012-01-25T05:02:00.014-06:00

From Hollywood Report: ABC's 'Beauty and the Beast' Ordered to Pilot:

ABC is making it a pair of Beauty and the Beast reboots this pilot season.

The female-skewing network is moving forward with its reimagining of the classic fairy tale set in a mythical, dangerous world where a beautiful and tough princess discovers an unlikely connection with a mysterious beast.

Human Target scribe Jonathan E. Steinberg (Jericho) will pen the project with Gary Fleder (Life Unexpected) and Mary Beth Basile (October Road) attached to executive produce the ABC Studios project through their Mojo Films shingle.

ABC's Beauty and the Beast update comes as the network has found success with freshman fairy tale Once Upon a Time, the dual universe drama revolving around Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and her long-lost daughter (Jennifer Morrison).

But will Gaston be forced upon us? Shudder. It's ABC/Disney. It could happen. Just saying. Although I am enjoying Once Upon a Time. I'm just more attached to Beauty and her Beast so I get worried.

Now that Snow White trend really is ending but the fairy tale one isn't!

And isn't everyone excited to know that my Beauty and the Beast Tales From Around the World will be out later this year?

CW Picks Up Beauty and the Beast

2012-01-25T05:01:00.020-06:00

I'm a little behind on this! From The CW Orders Pilots for Green Arrow Series, Sex and the City Prequel, Beauty and the Beast Redo:

The CW on Wednesday doled out pilot orders for three buzzy projects: Arrow, The Carrie Diaries and Beauty and the Beast.

Beauty and the Beast, meanwhile, is loosely based on the 1980s sudser starring Linda Hamilton, but adding a modern-day procedural twist.

From Hollywood Reporter:

The CW's Beauty and the Beast, meanwhile, is one of two projects mining the famed story this development season. The network's project is based on the 1980s CBS drama that starred Ron Perlman as Vincent (aka the Beast) and Linda Hamilton as Catherine (the Beauty).

Set up at CBS Television Studios, it's described as a modern-day romantic love story with a procedural twist. Felicity's Jennifer Levin and Brothers and Sisters' Sherri Cooper are attached to pen the project and executive produce alongside Paul Witt, C. Anthony Thomas, Ron Koslow and Bill Haber.

Now I loved the first few seasons of this show back when it aired. I was a teen eager for anything Beauty and the Beast and this worked well for me then. I have not rewatched in years but scenes and imagery are very vivid for me, even some plots. I am intrigued. And I am sure we won't be getting Gaston in this iteration. Thank goodness.

And at least this means the Snow White domination may be ending...

But the fairy tale trend isn't!

France Month: Le Petit Chaperon rouge par Jean Claverie

2012-01-25T05:00:00.038-06:00

Le Petit Chaperon rouge par Jean Claverie is a fun take on Little Red Riding Hood. I'll let the illustrations speak for themselves. This is in at least a second edition so it has been a popular interpretation. Claverie is also a popular illustrator. I really would love to see the entire book...

France Month: Les six frères cygnes par Elsa Oriol (Illustrateur)

2012-01-24T05:00:00.015-06:00

Les six frères cygnes par Wilhelm Grimm (Auteur), Jacob Grimm (Auteur), Elsa Oriol (Illustrateur) is better known as The Six Swans to us in English. I was thrilled to find so many illustrations from this book to share for it is a beloved tale, not often seen illustrated in picture books.

Book description:

La fratrie des frères Grimm se composait de cinq garçons et d'une fille, très importante dans l'histoire familiale, C'est pourquoi Les six frères cygnes occupent une place particulière parmi les contes que les frères Grimm ont fixés par écrit. Nous sommes ici d'emblée au cœur de toutes les tensions: la famille éclatée, recomposée, est source d'épreuves, de rivalités, de désirs, d'interdits, de transgressions et c'est seulement en surmontant ces épreuves que la fratrie parviendra à dénouer les fils du sortilège
et à construire enfin son destin.

Picture Book: Me and You by Anthony Browne

2012-01-23T10:13:00.000-06:00

While I have Goldilocks on everyone's brain today, I wanted to share a somewhat recent release (2010) that I missed until I few weeks ago and have been saving until Goldilocks was on my mind. The book is Me and You by Anthony Browne as author and illustrator who has offered us interesting fairy tale visions in the past.

Book description:

A small bear goes for a stroll in the park with his parents, leaving their bowls of porridge cooling on the kitchen table. Meanwhile, a girl with golden hair is hopelessly lost in a big, frightening city when she comes across a house with the door left invitingly open. Inside are three bowls of porridge in the kitchen, three chairs in the living room, and three comfortable-looking beds upstairs, and no one seems to be home . . .

For me, it's hard to see Goldilocks in a fresh way, but this book definitely puts a different twist on a the tale and makes it a different story. Goldilocks is not the brat she is in so many versions, think James Marshall's version in particular which I also adore.

France Month: Boucle d'or et les trois ours illustrated by Marion Billet

2012-01-23T09:54:00.000-06:00

Boucle d'or et les trois ours illustrated by Marion Billet is more of a play book than a book, but it is cute so I had to share it as part of France Month. It has pop-up book qualities and it has joined my personal wishlist.

France Month: Boucle d'or et les trois ours illustrated by Vanessa Hié

2012-01-23T09:41:00.000-06:00

Boucle d'or et les trois ours illustrated by Vanessa Hié has been published in two editions with two different authors credited for the text. The book on the left is in print while the one on the right is out of print. Either way, I found these illustrations witty and fun. I couldn't find internal imagery from the in-print edition which would be interesting since it is a different shape and must use the illustrations differently.

But the pompon hair on Goldilocks emphasizes her youth and sells the story to me.