- Paperback: 344 pages
- Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A.; Later Printing edition (13 Nov 1980)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0195202198
- ISBN-13: 978-0195202199
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 881,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
"All ages will enjoy Iona and Peter Opie's collection of The Classic Fairy Tales."--York County Coast Star
"Their most enjoyable book to date...For your money you get three books in one, the stories, the essays and the ample illustrations."--illiam Golding, Listener
"A beautiful book...both charming and scholarly"--Paul Barker, New Society
"Some wand must have been waved over the Opies to give them the brilliant idea for this book...A volume of extraordinary fascination and richness."--Edwin Morgan
"This is a book that everybody ought to possess."-- Richard Adams
"It is not possible to praise too highly The Classic Fairy Tales, selected, introduced, and annotated by the peerless scholars of children's literature Iona and Peter Opie."--The New Yorker
"Contains 24 of the best-known fairy tales, dozens of absolutely entrancing illustrations, and a brilliant and extensive commentary by Iona and Peter Opie, the peerless anthologists who have given us the Oxford Diction --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
We have all been enchanted, enthralled and even terrified by fairy tales, and no child is brought up without learning the story of Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood. The most popular tales have long histories, over which successive editors have not only shortened and sentimentalized them but also slanted them according to the demands of time. In this book, 24 of the best-known tales are given in their original form, either as they were first printed in English, or in their earliest surviving text. Each tale has a historical introduction, showing the development of the story and noting particular points of interest. Was Cinderella's shoe really a glass slipper or was it made of fur? Was Little Red Riding Hood devoured by the wolf, or was she saved. How did the old woman in Southey's version of "The Three Bears" become the Goldilocks we know today? In a general introduction, Iona and Peter Opie look at the realism as well as the enchantment in the tales, and put into perspective the contributions of Perrault, the Grimm brothers and Hans Christian Andersen. The book contains 150 illustrations by famous illustrators such as Walter Crane, George Cruikshank, Gustave Dore, Kate Greenaway, Arthur Rackham, W.Heath Robinson and Rex Whistler.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
'The History of Tom Thumb' is a glorious idea rather than a glorious story. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
'The History of Tom Thumb' is a glorious idea rather than a glorious story. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
The Opies are always good, thorough and well researched. These 24 tales are mostly the best known, from our favourite traditional tales to retellings by Perrault and Grimm bros. or stories by Andersen etc. Each tale is analised for its history, how it developed and what variations exist; then the full tale is recounted in a "standard" form. So, did you know that the Prince was not the kind and courageous person we've always supposed in Sleeping Beauty but a rapist who left Sleeping Beauty with two babies? [OK, so it's dropped out of the final version] Or that prototypes for Jack the Giant Killer go back to Snorri Sturluson in the early 13th century? it's fascinating to see what surprising ingredients went into these tales that children have appropriated as their own. Excellent book.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Great book, with some terrific illustrations. The biggest surprise on revisiting the originals is how immoral some of the main characters like Jack the Giantkiller and Jack and the Beanstalk are(cold-blooded killers and/or common thieves). But not all happy endings - or at least not originally.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
6 reviews
59 of 62 people found the following review helpful
Fairy tales as they were first printed in the English lang.
22 Oct 1999
Format:Paperback
I 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 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.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
An invaluable reference
14 Jun 2001
Format:Paperback
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.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
One of my favorite books of all time
6 April 2007
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
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.
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