The Brown Fairy Book

By Andrew Lang

Classic collection of 32 less familiar folk tales narrated in clear, lively prose. Different enough to capture all imaginations, the tales are drawn from many different cultures: the American Indians, Australian Bushmen, African Kaffirs, and from Persia, Lapland, Brazil, and India. Includes all of the original 50 illustrations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Jul 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9780486133058

Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a Scottish editor, poet, author, literary critic, and historian. He is best known for his work regarding folklore, mythology, and religion, for which he had an extreme interest in. Lang was a skilled and respected historian, writing in great detail and exploring obscure topics. Lang often combined his studies of history and anthropology with literature, creating works rich with diverse culture. He married Leonora Blanche Alleyne in 1875. With her help, Lang published a prolific amount of work, including his popular series, Rainbow Fairy Books.

Reviews for The Brown Fairy Book

[xicanti_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A collection of fairy stories and folktales from all over the world.As far as diversity goes, this is a good collection. Lang has compiled a wonderful assortment of stories from absolutely everywhere. The stories are nicely told, with good pacing and some lovely illustrations that really help capture that late 19th/early 20th century conception of the fairy tale.However, these retellings are so colonial that I often had trouble even telling where each story was set until I reached the notations at the end. These may be world stories, but they're filtered through a decidedly British worldview. There's little to no local colour or regional feel. The translations all use the same basic voice. I found it frustrating after a while. I think my personal low came when a traditional Native American story contained a description of something that was "as fat as a Christmas turkey." It really made me wonder what else had been changed to conform to the period's conception of non-European cultures.So this is a decent collection if you're just looking for a bit of fun, and it's a nice piece of nostalgia if you used to read the coloured Fairy Books when you were small. I wouldn't recommend approaching it as a serious cultural study, though, unless you're looking at how cultural biases affect storytelling.