false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183427636m/1416830.jpg 763479 3 The stories of magic and transformation that we call fairy tales are among the oldest known forms of literature, and many the most popular. "Jack and the Beanstalk," "Sleeping Beauty," "Little Red Ridinghood"--these ageless tales seem to have been written an almost magically long time ago. Yet fairy tales are still being created to this very day. And while they are principally directed to children and have child protagonists, these modern fairy tales, like the classics, have messages to those of all ages. In The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales, Alison Lurie has collected forty tales that date from the late nineteenth century up to the present. Here are trolls and princesses, magic and mayhem, morals to be told and lessons to be learned--all the elements of the classic fairy tale, in new and fantastical trappings. In Charles Dickens's "The Magic Fishbone," we find an unusually pragmatic princess who uses her one wish only after she has tried to solve her family's problems through hard work. Angela Carter's "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon" is a "Beauty and the Beast" tale with a contemporary twist, in which Beauty leaves Beast to live the high life, becoming a society brat who "smiled at herself in mirrors too much." And in T.H. White's "The Troll," we find out how his father killed the troll that tried to eat him. In these enchanting pages we also see how modern writers have taken the classic fairy tale and adapted it to their times in a variety of ways. Francis Browne, for example, takes a poke at Victorian standards of beauty in "The Story of Fairyfoot," about a young prince who is cast out of the kingdom of Stumpinghame because, unlike the fashion of the town, his feet are too small. Some writers, such as Ursula Le Guin, have taken familiar myths and turned them upside down. In Le Guin's "The Wife's Story," a mother sees the horrible transformation of her husband into "the hateful one", and then watches her sister and neighbors mob and kill this "creature whose hair had begun to come away all over his body...the eyes gone blue...staring at me out of that flat, soft, white face." And L.F. Baum's "The Queen of Quok," contains a castle and royal characters in a kingdom run by common sense and small-town American values. At one point the boy king of Quok has to borrow a dime from his counsellor to buy a ham sandwich, and greed transforms his young queen-to-be into a haggard old woman. With tales from the likes of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oscar Wilde, Carl Sandburg, James Thurber, Donald Barthelme, Louise Erdrich, and many more, The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales brings us through the modern-day world of the supernatural, the mystical, the moral, and reminds us that fairy tales are still very much alive. Contents Uncle David's nonsensical story about giants and fairies (1839) by Catherine Sinclair Feathertop (1846) by Nathaniel Hawthorne The king of the Golden River (1850) by John Ruskin The story of Fairyfoot (1856) by Frances Browne The light princess (1864) by George MacDonald The magic fishbone (1868) by Charles Dickens A toy princess (1877) by Mary De Morgan The new mother (1882) by Lucy Lane Clifford Good luck is better than gold (1882) by Juliana Horatia Ewing The apple of contentment (1886) by Howard Pyle The griffin and the minor canon (1887) by Frank Stockton The selfish giant (1888) by Oscar Wilde The rooted lover (1894) by Laurence Housman The song of the morrow (1894) by Robert Louis Stevenson The reluctant dragon (1898) by Kenneth Grahame The book of beasts (1900) by E. Nesbit The Queen of Quok (1901) by L. Frank Baum The magic shop (1903) by H.G. Wells The Kith of the Elf-folk (1910) by Edward Plunkett The story of Blixie Bimber and the power of the gold Buckskin Whincher (1922) by Carl Sandburg The lovely Myfanwy (1925) by Walter De La Mare The troll (1935) by T.H. White Gertrude's child (1940) by Richard Hughes The unicorn in the garden (1940) by James Thurber Bluebeard's daughter (1940) by Sylvia Townsend Warner The chaser (1941) by John Collier The King of the Elves (1953) by Philip K. Dick In the family (1957) by Naomi Mitchison The jewbird (1963) by Bernard Malamud Menaseh's dream (1968) by Isaac Bashevis Singer The glass mountain (1970) by Donald Barthelme Prince Amilec (1972) by Tanith Lee Petronella (1973) by Jay Williams The man who had seen the rope trick (1976) by Joan Aiken The courtship of Mr Lyon (1979) by Angela Carter The princess who stood on her own two feet (1982) by Jeanne Desy The wife's story (1982) by Ursula K. Le Guin The river maid (1982) by Jane Yolen The porcelain man (1987) by Richard Kennedy Old Man Potchikoo (1989) by Louise Erdrich 1407198 1993 The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales total:37|5:19|4:10|3:7|2:1|1:0| 37 158 98 5 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 5 0 false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Nov 05 14:33:51 -0800 2008 Thu May 21 17:48:00 -0700 2009 1
And, what is a modern fairy tale, you ask?

It's pretty much the same as a traditional fairy tale. There's one or two with a dragon, one with a nymph, a few with fairi...more...]]> 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 5 1 false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun May 03 10:37:48 -0700 2009 Fri May 15 12:21:01 -0700 2009 650720 0192803832 9780192803832 5 1 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176751494m/650720.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/650720.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 4 0 false Tue Dec 30 14:35:25 -0800 2008 Fri Jun 27 03:20:48 -0700 2008 Tue Dec 30 14:35:25 -0800 2008
It includes my favourite fairy tale ever, "The Princess Who Stood On Her Own Two Feet" by Jeanne Desy.]]> 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 5 1 false Wed Jun 04 14:17:03 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 04 14:17:56 -0700 2008 ]]> 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 5 0 false Sat Dec 15 10:29:27 -0800 2007 Sat Dec 15 10:29:42 -0800 2007 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 0 0 false Mon Dec 07 21:10:05 -0800 2009 Mon Dec 07 21:10:05 -0800 2009 650720 0192803832 9780192803832 5 1 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176751494m/650720.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/650720.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 0 0 false Mon Dec 07 18:49:35 -0800 2009 Mon Dec 07 18:49:35 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 0 0 false Fri Dec 04 22:28:25 -0800 2009 Fri Dec 04 22:28:25 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 0 0 false Sun Nov 29 19:56:02 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 29 19:56:02 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 5 0 false Sun Nov 29 18:32:30 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 29 18:32:30 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 0 0 false Fri Nov 27 19:56:26 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 27 19:56:26 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 3 0 false Wed Nov 25 11:14:14 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 25 11:14:14 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 3 0 false Mon Nov 23 12:11:08 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 23 12:11:08 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 0 0 false Wed Nov 18 20:28:12 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 18 20:28:12 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 0 0 false Wed Nov 18 20:28:02 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 18 20:28:02 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 0 0 false Thu Nov 12 23:55:50 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 12 23:55:50 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 5 0 false Thu Nov 12 04:49:07 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 12 04:49:07 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 0 0 false Wed Nov 11 11:47:13 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 11 11:47:13 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 0 0 false Fri Nov 06 23:39:55 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 06 23:39:58 -0800 2009 763479 019282385X 9780192823854 28 4 4.27 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178141770m/763479.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/763479.The_Oxford_Book_of_Modern_Fairy_Tales 0 0 false Fri Nov 06 09:21:44 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 06 09:21:44 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1416830