Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know
1915
Here are the stories that have haunted and healed generations of children. Collected in 1915 but told for centuries before, these are the original fairy tales: raw, moral, and utterly spellbinding. From Cinderella's glass slipper to Jack's magic beans, from Ali Baba's forty thieves to the Sleeping Beauty's century-long sleep, each tale pits goodness against cruelty, cleverness against brute force, and rewards the kind heart and the brave spirit. The introduction argues that fairy tales are 'the poetic record of the facts of life' - imaginative attempts to make sense of a harsh world. These aren't the softened Disney versions. Two Eyes is starved by her jealous sisters. Blue Beard leaves a trail of dead wives. The Twelve Brothers face real danger. Yet within darkness, light always wins. This is the collection that taught millions of children how to imagine, how to hope, and how to recognize evil wearing a kind face. For young readers ready for stories that don't flinch, and for adults who remember what these tales meant to them.
Editions
X-Ray
“Then the maiden climbed into a tree, and, seating herself in the branches, began to knit.””
— Unknown
“of the race, untrammelled by the necessity of rigid adherence to the fact. The myths record the earliest attempt at an explanation of the world and its life; the fairy tale records the free and joyful””
— Unknown
“Fair queen, at home there is none like thee,But over the mountains is Snow-white free,With seven little dwarfs, who are strange to see;A thousand times fairer than thou is she.Queen, thou art not the fairest now;Snow-white over the mountain's browA thousand times fairer is than thou.Queen, thou art the fairest here,But not when Snow-white is near;Over the mountains still is she,Fairer a thousand times than thee.””
— Unknown
“I will fly away to them, to the royal birds, and they will beat me, because I, that am so ugly, dare to come near them. But it is all the same. Better to be killed by them than to be pursued by ducks, and beaten by fowls, and pushed about by the girl who takes care of the poultry yard, and to suffer hunger in winter!" And it flew out into the water, and swam towards the beautiful swans; these looked at it, and came sailing down upon it with outspread wings. "Kill me!" said the poor creature, and bent its head down upon the water, expecting nothing but death. But what was this that it saw in the clear water? It beheld its own image; and, lo! it was no longer a clumsy dark-gray bird, ugly and hateful to look at, but a”
— Unknown
“now at the end of a long avenue, but when he turned to, look for his followers not one was to be seen; the woods had closed instantly upon him as he had passed through. He was entirely alone, and utter””
— Unknown
“did all in his power to render his guests comfortable; the rich and the great were not invited.””
— Unknown
“instinctive perception of the fact that while immense toil lies behind the artist's skill, the soul of the creation came from beyond the world of work and the making of it was a bit of play. The man of creative spirit is often a tireless worker, but in his happiest hours he is at play; for all work, when it rises into freedom and power, is play.””
— Unknown
“that the gentleman who owned it was vastly civil and pleasing. Soon after their return home, she told her mother that she had no longer any dislike to””
— Unknown
“The fairy tale belongs to the child and ought always to be within his reach, not only because it is his special literary form and his nature craves it, but because it is one of the most vital of the textbooks offered to him in the school of life. In ultimate importance it outranks the arithmetic, the grammar, the geography, the manuals of science; for without the aid of the imagination none of these books is really comprehensible.””
— Unknown
