Customer Reviews

Beauties, Beasts and Enchantment: Classic French Fairy Tales (Meridian)

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I bought this book when I was a junior in High School because I enjoyed fantasy and the cover was so beautiful; it turned me into a fairy tale scholar. I have since written at least 5 university papers on fairy tales, specifically Beauty and the Beast, and this book has been in every bibliography. I even did my Honors Research project on Beauty and the Beast because of the incredible influence Jack Zipes has had on me. Through this book I learned what fairy tales were really like, not those bowdlerized silly things that we usually read, and I learned that other people took them seriously. The introduction is fantastic background into the French figures whose tales have so far become a part of our culture, and the stories are not the kind you are prone to find in usual anthologies. Along with fairy tale as Myth and The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture,I recommend it wholeheartedly, especially if you are interested in pursuing a scholarly approach to wonder tales.

If you love fairy tales and felt some were lacking you will love this book. With two versions of Beauy and the Beast, one covering the true details of the prince's curse and fairy politics, and several classic style french stories, it will quickly become a family favorite.

I own the more condensed version of this book, and did review it, but there still remains something incredibly juicy about the luxurious tales stored in this book. They come from the time of "parlor tales" where apparently it was the in thing among writers to make up the most imaginative fairy tales possible. And admittedly these are incredibly imaginative, even as one is rolling their eyes as wild characters still desperately conform to French style. No matter what you think of them artistically, they are still thoroughly entertaining and it's a pity that many of the stories aren't in vogue any longer.

Great movies. Great characters