The Blue Fairy Book (Dover Storybooks for Children) (Paperback)

by Andrew Lang (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Finest stories from around the world--most of them old favorites: "Sleeping Beauty," "Rumpelstiltskin," "Cinderella," "The Arabian Nights," 33 more. Includes original 138 black-and-white illustrations.


About the Author
Andrew Lang was one of the most famous literary critics around 1900. He also edited a series of children's fable books that preserved and illustrated a host of tales which are still used extensively today. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Paperback: 390 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (June 1, 1965)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486214370
• ISBN-13: 978-0486214375
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #26,327 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #20 in	Books > Children's Books > Literature > Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths > Anthologies
  #37 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Folklore & Mythology

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thirty-seven marvellous unadulterated fairy-tales, May 6, 2000

By	Mike Christie (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Andrew Lang's series of fairy-tale books are some of the fundamental children's reading of the twentieth and late nineteenth century. The stories are not "original": there's no such thing when they were almost without exception passed down orally; but they are in old, not very modernized tellings.

Many readers who have only seen or read modern, Disney-fied versions of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty or Snow-White will not recognize some of the darker twists in these tales. For example, in Sleeping Beauty, when the Prince wakes the Princess and marries her, the story is by no means over. The Prince's mother is an Ogress, whom his father married for her wealth, and it's suspected that she likes to eat little children; that "whenever she saw little children passing by, she had all the difficulty in the world to avoid falling upon them". The happy couple have two children, named Day and Morning, and the Ogress decides to dine on them one day when the Prince is away. Yes, it still has a happy ending, but Disney it isn't.

The illustrations--8 full page, plus 130 smaller ones--are all from the original 1891 edition. They're black and white woodcuts; very atmospheric, and I think most children will like them.

The only thing that might have to be explained to a child is the occasional use of vocabulary that is no longer current. Most often this is the use of "thee" and "thou"; but a few other words will crop up. However, they're usually inferable from context, and the stories are marvellous entertainment regardless.

105 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Be very careful of the publisher of this book!, December 10, 2002

By	Kristen Laine (Orange, NH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Blue Fairy Book, The (Hardcover)

I just ordered a number of the Andrew Lang books from Amazon. The Blue Fairy Book arrived yesterday, and I could not have been more disappointed. It came in a very plain blue hardback. I opened it up, and NOWHERE inside is Andrew Lang mentioned, nowhere are any of the illustrations, from either of the two other versions I know. The production quality -- the paper, the binding -- is poor, and the "author" is listed throughout as "Anonymous." The publisher of this book is IndyPublish.com. I don't know the deal, or how they get listed under Andrew Lang, but I recommend that if you want a real Andrew Lang book, don't buy one of the IndyPublish books.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spiffy Collection!, April 15, 2000

By	Emily Taylor "1st Grade Teacher/Scouter Gal" (Northern Utah) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Blue Fairy Book (Hardcover)

"The Blue Fairy Book" is amazing. I am planning to collect all of Andrew Lang's color fairy tale books. It has an excellent group of stories from different fairy tale writers, including Perrault, d'Aulnoy, and Grimm. This book was originally printed in the 19th century. It has not been abridged, nor have any of the original pictures been taken out. (Be warned, they're *artistic*) These are the original, unaltered by Disney versions, and contain the nightmarish plots they were meant to have. Anyone who collects fairy tales should have this.