The Lilac Fairy Book
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Product Description
33 tales from Portugal, Ireland, Wales and points East and West, among them “The Brown Bear of Norway,” “The Enchanted Deer,” “The Tale of a Very Terrible Boy,” and “The Brownie of the Lake.” 51 illustrations.
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There are a number of collections by this leader under various fairy colors. They are all brilliant and entertaining althoug after a while they do tend to repeat the same thought although they do not repeat tales, just some regions have the same ethic tale told a small differently.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
This book was bought with others of the same genre as part of a set that I am collecting. I hope to own all in the series and share the heritage of fairy tales with my grandchildren.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
In the late 19th century, historian, scholar, and anthropologist, Andrew Lang, started publishing collections of fairy tales from around the world. The first volume was `The Blue Fairy Book’ published in 1887. Lang was not a right ethnologist, like the German Brothers Grimm. He was far more the `translator’ than collector of tales from the source, tales transcribed from being told by people to whom the tales were passed down by word of mouth. In fact, many tales in his first volume, such as Rumpelstiltskin; Snow White; Sleeping Beauty; Cinderella; and Hansel and Gretel were translated from Grimm’s books of fairy tales. Some of his `fairy tales’ were even `hackneyed from relatively recent fantasy fiction, such as A Voyage to Lilliput, the first of the four episodes in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
My inspiration for commenting Lang’s series of fairy tale books is for the sheer amount of tales, the wonderful woodcut illustrations, some few of which may have become nearly as well loved as the tales (although not reasonably in the same league as Sir John Tenniel’s illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s fantastic fantasies), and the fact that I had these when I was young.
With twelve of these books, with between 30 and 36 tales in each book, this gives one about 400 different tales. If I were to recommend anything as standard equipment at a grandparents’ house, it would be a perfect set of these books.
Needless to say, there are a few `warnings’ to accompany books assembled over 100 years ago. You will encounter a honest number of words with which even an adult may be unfamiliar, let alone a five year ancient. For example, on the second page of The Princess Mayblossom in The Red Fairy Book, a character puts sulfur in a witch’s porridge. This requires at least three explanations. What is sulfur, what is porridge, and why is sulfur in porridge such a terrible thing. More hard still is when a prince entered the town on a white horse which `pranced and caracoled to the sound of the trumpets’. In 19th century London, caracoling (building half turns to the right and the left) was probably as common and as well known as `stepping on the gas’ is today. But, if you’re a forerunner, that’s half the fun, explaining new words and thoughts to the young-uns.
There is another `danger’ which may require just a bit more explanation, although in today’s world of crime dramas on TV, I’m not sure that most kids are already really immune to being shocked by death and dead bodies. In these tales, lots of people and creatures get killed in very unpleasant ways, and lots of very excellent people and creatures suffer in very unpleasant ways. It’s ironic that the critics in Lang’s own time felt the tales were ‘unreality, cruelty, and escapism to be harmful for young readers, while holding that such tales were beneath the serious consideration of persons of mature age’. The success of a whole library of Walt Disney feature part cartoons based on these tales is a tribute to how well they work with children. But do be warned, Uncle Walt did clean things up a bit. Lang’s versions hold back on very small that was hideous and unpleasant in some of these tales.
The down side to the fantastic amount of tales is that even when some come from very different parts of the world, there is a remarkable amount of overlap in theme, plot, and characters. But by the time you get to another tale of a gorgeous young girl mistreated by a stepmother, it will have been several month since you read Cinderella or the Small Glass Slipper in The Blue Fairy Book. The additional side of the coin is that you can play the game of trying to recall what that additional tale was with a similar theme.
There is one very huge word of caution about buying these books through Amazon or a similar on line outlet. I stopped counting when I got to twelve different editions of The Blue Fairy Book, or a volume including several of these books. Not all of these editions have the original woodcuts and even worse, not all have a table of contents and introduction. The one publisher which has all twelve volumes is by Dover. Additional publishers, such as Flying Chipmunk Publishing (yes, that’s it’s name) also have all the original illustrations, table of contents, and introduction, but I’m not certain that publisher has all twelve volumes. Dover most certainly does, as I just bought all twelve of them from Amazon.
While I suspect these tales may have been `ancient hat’ for reasonably some time, it may be that with the popularity of Lord of the Rings, the Narnia tales, and the Harry Potter tales, all of which have their share of suffering and death, that these may be in for a revival. Again, the main attraction is that for relatively small money and space, Grammy and Grandad get a fantastic resource for bonding with children.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
This particular sample of Lang’s collections is another treasure, as permanently, expanding beyond the more well-known tales (although they are certainly not ignored!) to Arthurian legends and Indian tales. Tales from a variety of countries are included, and randomly place together rather than organized by country. It makes a straight-through reading a blast, like a wild tour around the world. The illustrations, as permanently, are masterpieces in themselves.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
The Andrew Lang collections are well worth it. I read them when I was a child (bless that library) and when I saw them for sale I couldn’t resist. The tales have retained their clearness and it is appealing to see similar themes dealt with by different cultures.
These would be fantastic for parents reading to their children or for children looking for something appealing and fun to read.
Certainly worth it!
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5