The Pink Fairy Book
By Andrew Lang
4/5
()
About this ebook
Spanning the globe, the stories within The Pink Fairy Book explore the oral and written traditions of Japan, Scandinavia, Russia, Greece, Spain, Germany, and Sicily, with tales of dragons, princesses, mermaids, hermits, witches, and wives.
Wide-ranging in scope, this volume includes the best English translations of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow-Queen,” “The Goblin and the Grocer, “The Flying Trunk,” and “The Fir Tree,” as well as “The House in the Wood” and “The Two Brothers,” both collected by the Brothers Grimm. The collection also features “Urashimataro and the Turtle,” “The Princess in the Chest,” “The Water of Life,” “The Wounded Lion,” “The Merry Wives,” and many other legends.
“The old favorite series on which most of us were brought up—and our parents before us . . . Andrew Lang and his associates managed to break the stranglehold of the pious sentimentality handed out to children by collecting—from all over the world—fairy tales of all people, and bringing out the volumes we all know and love.” —Kirkus Reviews
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.
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Reviews for The Pink Fairy Book
90 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Another one of Andrew Lang’s colorful collections of fairy stories and folk tales, this time diverting from a mostly European collection to include a heavily animal-based collection of Scandinavian and Japanese stories. Artist H.J. Ford returns with another gorgeous set of plates and illustrations, his princesses unmatched in intricate detail. The stories feature classic tales of princes, princesses, and assorted magical folk and creatures.The collection loses half a star because, as another reviewer noted, “as is usually the case with Lang's collections, the writing is clear and enjoyable, but highly colonial.” The English versions are all completed from previous European translations, making for a supremely unreliable editor who has purged much of the local flavor from some of the tales, making even some of the exotic folk tales seem traditionally European. For those looking for a classic source of obscure or unusual fairy tales not found in Disney’s repertoire, however, Andrew Lang’s extensive collection is a wonderful, if slightly repetitious addition to any school or public library.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A collection of fairy stories and folktales from around the world.This installment of the coloured fairy books does include stories from Japan, Italy, Africa and Spain, but there's a real emphasis on Scandinavian stories. Several of Hans Christian Anderson's less morbid stories help open the volume, and a large number of the remaining stories hale from Sweden and Denmark, in particular. The tales themselves are a combination of prince and princess stories, (with differing levels of fairy involvement), brother stories and animal fables, with the occasional story about simple folk who make good.As is usually the case with Lang's collections, the writing is clear and enjoyable, but highly colonial. It's virtually impossible to tell where each of these stories originated based on the writing style. Lang has purged them of all local colour and regional feel. Many of the animal stories are easily identifiable for obvious reasons, (ie, leopards are not native to northern Europe), and sometimes the climate helps determine the location, but in most cases I wouldn't have recognized the source country from the story itself.If you're looking for careful ethnography, these collections probably aren't the way to go. If you're just interested in entertaining stories, however, or are looking for a bit of a nostalgia trip, they can be a good resource. The illustrations are another high point.