
cdg shirt ad, spring 03
Worlds inside marbles, all from Fabien’s Marble Shop and Fabien’s Pinterest
elucipher-deactivated20151112:
No, I haven’t! This is not an exhaustive list by any means: just stories that I’ve read and enjoyed.
European
I’m most familiar with European fairy tales, as I grew up with them. A collection I like very much is Maria Tatar, The Classic Fairy Tales (PDF): a critical edition focusing on six major tales (Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty & the Beast, Bluebeard, Hansel & Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood), offering versions from different cultures, adaptations and rewritings and subversions, etc. It’s fascinating to compare.
Britain & Ireland
- Francis James Child, English & Scottish Popular Ballads [e-text]
- W.B. Yeats, Irish Fairy & Folk Tales: short stories & a handful of poems; written in Irish brogue; I like “The Soul Cages”, “The man who never knew fear”, and “Witches, Fairy Doctors”; also Stephens, Irish Fairy Tales (e-text).
- Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince & Other Tales & A House of Pomegranates (e-text) or The Complete Fairy Tales. All of them. Just—all of them.
France & Italy:
- Early Italian: W.G. Waters, The Facetious Nights of Straparola (e-text), Giabattista Basile, Il Pantamerone; the Story of Stories (e-text), esp. “Cenerentola”, “Petrosinella”, and “Nennino & Nennella”. My favourite is “Talia”, the much darker version of Sleeping Beauty.
- 17th century French: Madame D’Aulnoy, Fairy Tales (e-text). Charles Perrault, Contes (e-text) or French text with facing English translation, esp. “Beauty & the Beast”, “Cinderella”, “Sleeping Beauty” and “Bluebeard”.
- Modern: Italo Calvino, Italian Folktales—200 stories, dark and often macabre yet warm and witty; I like “Apple Girl”, “Sleeping Beauty and Her Children”.
- Jack Zipes, Beauty and the Beast, and Other Classic French Tales
Germany
- E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Golden Pot & Other Tales or The Best Tales of Hoffman (e-text) esp. “Sandman”, “The Mines of Falun”, “The Golden Pot”, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse-King”. (Good overview of Hoffman’s work.)
- J.W. von Goethe, “The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily”.
- The Brothers Grimm: good introduction to German Romanticism/fairy tale context; Jack Zipes’ introduction to Brothers Grimm (PDF); Joan Acocella, “Once Upon A Time“ (New Yorker); Ashliman’s online collection. My favourite: Manheim’s Grimms’ Tales For Young & Old, esp. “Hansel & Gretel”, “Cinderella”, “Snow-White & Rose-Red”, “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”.
Scandinavia & Russia
- Asbjørnsen & Moe, Popular Tales From the Norse (e-text, print); East of the Sun & West of the Moon
- Hans Christian Andersen: Jean Hersholt, The Complete Andersen: an online collection of all of Hans Christian Andersen’s tales. My favourite print edition is Erik Haugaard, The Complete Fairy Tales & Stories. Particularly “The Little Mermaid”, “The Snow Queen”, “The Little Match Girl”.
- Aleksandr Afanasev, Russian Fairytales (alt), especially “Vasilissa the Beautiful”, “The Fable of the Turnip and the Honeypot”, “Koschei the Deathless”, the Baba-Yaga tales, “Snow-Maiden”.
Asia
- China: Pu Songling, Strange Stories From a Chinese Studio, particularly “The Tiger Guest” and “Painted Skin”, “The Magic Sword”, “Magical Arts”. Also Ed Young’s Yon Po Po and Ai-Ling Louie’s Ya-Shen.
- Japan: Yei Theodora Ozaki, Japanese Fairy Tales. I like “Momotaro”, “The Mirror of Matsuyama”, “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter” (“Princess Kaguya”, soon to be adapted by Studio Ghibli), “The Ogre of Rashomon”, “Prince Yamato Take”; also Royall Tyler, Japanese Tales: 200+ stories, all very short—the “Love & Loss” and “Water” sections are particularly lovely.
- India: Joseph Jacobs, Indian Fairy Tales (e-text): I like “Punchkin” and “Loving Laili”; A. K. Ramanujan, Folktales From India; “Savitri”
Also: Husain Haddawy, The Arabian Nights, especially “The Three Ladies From Baghdad” and “The Envier and the Envied”; and Haddawy, The Arabian Nights II, especially “Ali Al Din” and “Qamar al-Zaman”.
Modern fairytales & adaptations:
- Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (epub, online, especially “The Company of Wolves”); Ann Sexton, Transformations (PDF, Scribd); Tanith Lee, Red As Blood; Nalo Hopkinson, Skin Folk; Neil Gaiman, Smoke & Mirrors (epub/mobi); Bill Willingham, Fables (download); Tim Burton, The Melancholy Death of Oyster; Revolutionary Girl Utena, Guillermo del Toro, Pan’s Labyrinth; Emma Donoghue, Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins; Ellen Jackson, Cinder Edna; Jon Scieszka, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs; Louise Murphy, The True Story of Hansel & Gretel.
