Full Description
This is a superb book on all levels. The translations of the tales are excellent. The research is impeccable. The introduction and notes are highly informative. Most important, Lewis Seifert and Domna Stanton have focused on unusual fairy tales that have never been translated before and are seminal for understanding the development of the literary fairy tale as genre. French women writers played a central role in the institutionalization of a literary genre in the French civilizing process that had huge ramifications in opera, theater, vaudeville, music, and film. Moreover, their tales influenced other writers of fairy tales in Europe. This book does an honor to their creative efforts and provides the basis for further research on the development of European fairy tales.
—Jack Zipes
Professor of German, Emeritus, University of Minnesota
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
List of Illustrations x
I. Volume Editors' Introduction 1
II. Fairy Tales by Seventeenth-Century Conteuses
Catherine Bernard: Introduction 47
Prince Rosebush 51
Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier de Villandon: Introduction 61
Marmoisan 66
Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d'Aulnoy:
Introduction 97
Princess Little Carp 103
The Doe in the Woods 151
Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force: Introduction 189
The Enchanter 194
Green and Blue 213
Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat:
Introduction 231
Little Eel 236
Wasted Effort 270
III. Critical Texts on the Conte de fées
Introduction 281
Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier de Villandon, Letter to
Madame D.G.*** (1695) 286
Pierre de Villiers, Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other
Contemporary Works, To Protect against Bad Taste (1699),
from the Second Conversation 294
Appendix 311
Bibliography 315
Index 337
