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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 398.21
EAN num: 9780195202199
ISBN number: 0195202198
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 344
Printing Date: November 13, 1980
Publishing house: Oxford University Press, USA
Age index: Ages 9-12
Sale Popularity Level: 101813
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
This volume contains twenty-four of the best known fairy tales in the English language, presented here in the exact words of their very first English publication or of the earliest surviving text. Including 'Sleeping Beauty,' 'Bluebeard,' 'Cinderella,' 'Thumbelina,' and 'Hansel and Gretel,' as well as many others, this collection provides a historical introduction for each tale and a general Introduction which traces the history of fairy tales collected in Asia and Europe long before they appeared in English.
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Rated by buyers -
My mother got this book for me when I was a child, and needless to say, it changed the way I learned fairy tales. Iona Opie presents some classic fairy tales as they were ORIGINALLY written... Dark, lurid, mysterious, and pessimistic. The artwork littered throughout the pages is commendable even if it were its own title.
I love this book so much that I have purchased it as a gift for countless friends, including a pen pal from Japan who found it amazing that our Western fairy tales (the stories told to our ancestors as young children) were indeed so graphic.
Great, great book -- a classic. Hope this one never goes out of style.
Rated by buyers -
Everything the Opies write is fascinating and approachable, and this book is a revelation. All these tales, familiar and no-longer-so-familiar, are great to read in this age of sanitised, bowdlerised, or Disneyfied folktales. But the historical details of how the stories evolved, what and from where the variants are, and the significance of various elements of the stories - all these are of great general interest, and are also invaluable to the storyteller needing to do a bit of research.
Rated by buyers -
I very first read this book in 1983, and was amazed with it then. It's unique and extremely interesting. Iona and Peter Opie have the original tales as very first printed in the English language. Added to that is the history and the actual gruesome origins of what we now consider children's stories! For example, Sleeping Beauty is not awakened by a kiss. Her Prince Charming violates her while she sleeps (and since she doesn't wake up, we can only imagine how mediocre he was...). She only awakens 9 months later, during the birth of twins! He eventually returns to her, and then the story gets more complicated with his ogre mother who wants to canibalize the children. The story of the Frog Prince is even stranger. Since these are the actual tales, we can see how we've changed the stories to fit in with our culture. This is not a book for young children. The history part was the most fascinating to me. In addition, litle details such as learning that Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of squirrel fur, not glass. Both words in French are spelled similarly (vaire, verre...I'm not sure of the spelling either)and the original printer had a typo that lives on til today.
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