Russian Fairy Tales (Everyman's Library Children's Classics) [Hardcover]

Gillian Avery (Author), Ivan Bilibin (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 7 and up | Series: Everyman's Library Children's Classics

Notable for their magnificent, jewel-like color illustrations by Bilibin, these traditional tales include "The Frog Princess," "Vassilissa the Beautiful," and "The White Duck." Though Russian Fairy Tales in the Pantheon Folklore Library is a book for adults, it has sold over 30,000 copies.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Illustrated by Ivan Bilibin

About the Author

Gillian Avery (1926- ) was born in Reigate, Surrey, where she started her writing career as a journalist on the Surrey Mirror. Deciding that the pace of book publishing was more congenial than that of newspapers, she went to Oxford in 1950 to work for the Clarendon Press. In 1952 she married a don, Anthony Cockshut, and when they moved to Manchester she was so homesick for Oxford that she set her first novel, The Warden's Niece (1957), in an Oxford college in Victorian times, feeling an affinity between her own pre-war generation and the Victorian child, characterized by a 'meek acceptance of the power of the adult world'. Returning to Oxford in 1964, she continued to write novels, including A Likely Lad, set in Manchester, which won the Guardian award for children's fiction in 1971 and was successfully dramatized as a children's TV serial.

Gillian Avery is also well known as a reviewer and historian of children's literature. Her two most recent books are Behold the Child: American Children and their Books, 1621-1922 and The Everyman Anthology of Poetry for Children.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 7 and up
  
• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Everyman's Library (November 21, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679436413
• ISBN-13: 978-0679436416
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.7 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #95,610 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #90 in Books > Children's Books > Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths > Multicultural

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Definitely Worth the Price, October 8, 2004

By 

Bill Allcorn - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Russian Fairy Tales (Everyman's Library Children's Classics) (Hardcover)

Yes, the illustrations are reduced to a smaller size than one might like and, yes, the colors are flatter than they presumably are in the originals. But for about $10 you get a very attractive, 180+ page, hard cover book with a sample of more than 50 of Ivan's Bilibin's gorgeous fairy tale illustrations, all but one or two in color and many full, or even double page.

For the price, I don't think you can go wrong if you're at all interested in Russian fairy tale stories and illustrations. By way of comparison. I recently ran across some Russian editions of illustrated Russian fairy tale books, including at least one illustrated by Biliban, at a Russian gift Shop in Oakland, CA. They were larger format and the reproduction of the illustrations was somewhat better, but the were paperback, only about 32 pages, and cost $29.95 each if I remember correctly.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Luxorious! Excellent selection of tales!, September 21, 1999

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Russian Fairy Tales (Everyman's Library Children's Classics) (Hardcover)

The selection of tales in this book is excellent, the cover and the illustrations are luxorious, and more than worth what you pay. I was very pleasantly surprised when I opened the package and saw this book, because I needed it for a friend, and it is, indeed, a wonderful present.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Lovely Book, February 28, 2004

By 

F. J. Powell (Chester, SC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Russian Fairy Tales (Everyman's Library Children's Classics) (Hardcover)

Very nice gift book,I ordered this book after coming back from Russia as a present for my nieces and nephews to give them a taste of the wonder of this wild country...and thoroughly enjoyed it myelf. I disagree with a previous reviewer over the illustrations: the pictures by Bilibin are great.. they're not dingy: just turn of the century Russian in a beautiful style-moderne style that was all the rage in St Petersburg.
Russian Folktales typically have charming rhymed couplets sprinkled throughout the stories and unfortunately, in this translation, these have been flattened to strict prose, but the stories are still well told.