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12th out of 573 books
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214 voters
The Blue Fairy Book (Coloured Fairy Books)
by
Andrew Lang ,
H.J. Ford , G.P. Jacomb Hood
The Blue Fairy Book was the first volume in the series and so it contains some of the best known tales, taken from a variety of sources: not only from Grimm, but exciting adventures by Charles Perrault and Madame D'Aulnoy, the Arabian Nights, and other stories from popular traditions. Here in one attractive paperbound volume - with enlarged print - are Sleeping Beauty, Rum...more
Paperback, Dover Children's Classics, 390 pages
Published
June 1st 1965
by Dover Publications
(first published 1889)
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I always loved fairytales when I was a little kid––and no, not the silly watered-down ones. I liked the real, hardcore shit. The fairytales where everyone dies. Those are the good ones. Those Disney princess movies always bored me. (Except I loved Beauty and the Beast, because Belle isn't a dumbass and she reads a lot––like meeee!)
Anyway, if I recall correctly, I had at least one of Andrew Lang's fairytale collections when I was a kid … maybe a couple of them. Then, this past month, I had an ass...more
Anyway, if I recall correctly, I had at least one of Andrew Lang's fairytale collections when I was a kid … maybe a couple of them. Then, this past month, I had an ass...more
“Grandmamma, what great arms you have got!”
“That is the better to hug thee, my dear.”
“Grandmamma, what great legs you have got!”
“That is to run the better, my child.”
“Grandmamma, what great ears you have got!”
“That is to hear the better, my child.”
“Grandmamma, what great eyes you have got!”
“It is to see the better, my child.”
“Grandmamma, what great teeth you have got!”
“That is to eat thee up.”
And, saying these words, this wicked wolf fell upon Little Red Riding-Hood, and ate her all up.
Wuaahh!!...more
“That is the better to hug thee, my dear.”
“Grandmamma, what great legs you have got!”
“That is to run the better, my child.”
“Grandmamma, what great ears you have got!”
“That is to hear the better, my child.”
“Grandmamma, what great eyes you have got!”
“It is to see the better, my child.”
“Grandmamma, what great teeth you have got!”
“That is to eat thee up.”
And, saying these words, this wicked wolf fell upon Little Red Riding-Hood, and ate her all up.
Wuaahh!!...more
I did a folklore course during my first year at University and my tutor was constantly going on about the Andrew Lang collection of fairy tales - amazingly, it's now 14 years since graduation and I've actually got round to picking one of these up and reading it (okay, not a great admission as testimony to my studiousness, but never mind, I got there in the end!) Now, however, that I have read the Blue Fairy Book, I will be reading the others too. This is a fantastic collection with such classic...more
Nov 16, 2012
Blake
marked it as to-read
The book " The blue fairy " is wrote for a wide spread of audience. It has many stories in it. There is no specific location of the stories. Some are in kingdoms and some are in modern times.
The book begins with a story about a gardeners son who falls in love with the kings daughter and she with him. Throughout the story the boy comes to different challenges to over come to win the princesses hand in marriage. These include wining a race with the kings closest friends son, who also wishes to m...more
The book begins with a story about a gardeners son who falls in love with the kings daughter and she with him. Throughout the story the boy comes to different challenges to over come to win the princesses hand in marriage. These include wining a race with the kings closest friends son, who also wishes to m...more
I'm excited to be re-reading these!
I appear to have bookmarked (on my e-reader) the story of Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, perhaps because the female Fairy has a large role. In fact, I had sort of forgotten what a significant percentage of traditional fairy tales - even western ones - have active women using agency. Hint: They're mostly not the ones that people today are aware of, because they're not the ones retold in the media.
Anyway, more of my bookmarks: I really liked The Ta...more
I appear to have bookmarked (on my e-reader) the story of Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess, perhaps because the female Fairy has a large role. In fact, I had sort of forgotten what a significant percentage of traditional fairy tales - even western ones - have active women using agency. Hint: They're mostly not the ones that people today are aware of, because they're not the ones retold in the media.
Anyway, more of my bookmarks: I really liked The Ta...more
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"She lives in a castle which lies east of the sun and west of the moon..."
Of all the fairy book spectrum, I'm glad I started with blue. More than a few old favourites in here, in particular the stories East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and Beauty and the Beast. It's lovely regardless, I think, to fall every now and then into a world where, even before first sight, people can fall so deeply in love that they can't eat or drink (view spoiler)...more
Of all the fairy book spectrum, I'm glad I started with blue. More than a few old favourites in here, in particular the stories East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and Beauty and the Beast. It's lovely regardless, I think, to fall every now and then into a world where, even before first sight, people can fall so deeply in love that they can't eat or drink (view spoiler)...more
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I know that I took this out of the library somewhere in middle school. It was either seeing Disney's Beauty and the Beast (which was only my second Disney animated film I'd seen in the theater at the time, partly because the resurgence of new films started just before this with The Little Mermaid), I was really taken with the story and fairy tales in general. (Or, I might have taken it out after my 8th grade unit on fairy tales, which really showed me literary criticism for the first time). I to...more
The stories in this collection have an amazing range, and Lang is good enough to cite his source for almost all of his tales. There are 37 stories total, including six selections from Grimm, five from Perrault, a couple Scots tales (in dialect, sort of), a few British traditionals, three from the Arabian Nights, the part of Gulliver's Travels about Lilliput, and a full retelling of the Perseus myth with different names. It's almost overwhelming.
A few of them are really unique ones.
“The History o...more
A few of them are really unique ones.
“The History o...more
for many of us, when we think about faeries, an image like this pops into our heads:
or, for some of you (e.g. if your name is rick santorum), this:
"objection, your honor! that was a cheap shot."
"withdrawn."
but faerie tales are surprisingly dark and dreadful, particularly since they were originally meant for children. don't let the disney-fied versions fool you into thinking that this is going to be a mary-poppin', 'someday my prince will come', and oh, 'but i just can't wait to be king' snore-fe...more
I can't rate this. It's of immense use to scholars. On the other hand, I found the language and the drawings generally, erm, feeble and awkward. For example, all too often we didn't learn that a character was wicked until she got punished - but there were no clues by which we could be expected to infer such.
On the third hand, I did like the vocabulary - it doesn't talk down to children. "Animadvert" - ?! On the fourth hand many of the stories had themes and even plots in common. Both 'Beauty and...more
On the third hand, I did like the vocabulary - it doesn't talk down to children. "Animadvert" - ?! On the fourth hand many of the stories had themes and even plots in common. Both 'Beauty and...more
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I hoped that I would love this collection of stories but my overall feeling was just that I liked this book. Maybe it was the format of my e-reader. I did like several of the stories, but I am spoiled with the Disney feel for fairy tales. I did read these stories over several weeks, so I can't recall some of the earlier stories without going back to the book. The last two stories were written with a dialect which was difficult to read. My first thought was that my e-reader had a glich due to bei...more
The book assembled a wide range of tales, with seven from the Brothers Grimm, five from Madame d'Aulnoy, three from the Arabian Nights, and four Norse stories, among other sources.
"The Bronze Ring" - According to Lang's preface, this version of this fairy tale from the Middle East or Central Asia was translated and adapted from Traditions Populaires de l'Asie Mineure by Carnoy et Nicolaides. (Paris:Maison-neuve, 1889.)
"Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess" - a French fairy tale from Le P...more
"The Bronze Ring" - According to Lang's preface, this version of this fairy tale from the Middle East or Central Asia was translated and adapted from Traditions Populaires de l'Asie Mineure by Carnoy et Nicolaides. (Paris:Maison-neuve, 1889.)
"Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess" - a French fairy tale from Le P...more
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Overall, pretty good. Most of the stories (if not all?) are taken from other sources. A couple of the fairy tales were identical, but the names and sexes were changed to protect the innocent. The stories that made the most sense, strangely enough, were the ones taken from Arabian Nights. In Arabian Nights and the Greek myths, Lang took the genies and gods/etc and changed them into fairies, which was a bit weird to read. Also strange to read about Medusa, and have her changed into, I believe it w...more
This is a nice collection of stories. Some are familiar Grimm stories or Arabian Night tales. Others appear to Europeanized versions of stories like Perseus and the Gorgon's head. I was surprised by Little Red Riding Hood, which in this collection has Red being gobbled up at the wolf and that's it. I'm always amazed at the violence in these old stories. Nowadays we'd have to tone them WAY down. And, there are plenty of maidens spending the night in a man's bedchamber.... Hmmmmm, I wonder how tha...more
My main takeaway from Lang's "Blue Fairy Book"? "Happily ever after" is far from the norm! These tales include grizzly murders, playing on insecurities, forced marriages, abductions, and maniacal little people. Take "Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess" as an example.
If you had a complex about your de Bergerac-like nose, how'd you like to have a prattling fairy and dinner host say: "My dear Prince, might I beg you to move a little more that way, for your nose casts such a shadow that I...more
If you had a complex about your de Bergerac-like nose, how'd you like to have a prattling fairy and dinner host say: "My dear Prince, might I beg you to move a little more that way, for your nose casts such a shadow that I...more
Nov 20, 2011
Hp Tan
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
really, really bored people
Shelves:
my-ebooks
From the famed The Blue Fairy Book, I learned that:
1. If you are a girl, and you are "beautiful", so amazingly pretty that sometimes, there are just no words to describe you, you might just survive whatever is coming at you next, because
2. The villains can never defeat the good, because someway or other, there will always, out of the blue, and completely deus ex machina-like, pop out these magical items that might just save the beautiful girl's ass(oops, I mean, her cute behind).
3. You just hav...more
1. If you are a girl, and you are "beautiful", so amazingly pretty that sometimes, there are just no words to describe you, you might just survive whatever is coming at you next, because
2. The villains can never defeat the good, because someway or other, there will always, out of the blue, and completely deus ex machina-like, pop out these magical items that might just save the beautiful girl's ass(oops, I mean, her cute behind).
3. You just hav...more
Lang wrote some of the stories, but he largely edited this collection. Like the Grimms, but far more honest, Lang used translations provided by his wife and other women (he thanks the women in his introduction, gives credit to original sources at the end of the tales).
It makes this collection, the first, rather interesting. By and large, the stories are mostly from the Grimms and French Salons. They include well known favorites like "Cinderella" but also lesser known ones such as "The Yellow Dwa...more
It makes this collection, the first, rather interesting. By and large, the stories are mostly from the Grimms and French Salons. They include well known favorites like "Cinderella" but also lesser known ones such as "The Yellow Dwa...more
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What I did while reading this book was I wrote short little notes for each story, so that in the future I could look back and see which stories were worth reading again, or recommending. I gave each story a mini-rating of 1-3 asterisks (*), with 1 being the "horrible" and 3 being "just okay". Overall though, I was severally disappointed in this book of fairy tales.
The Bronze Ring: *This story was slightly shocking. The way they dealt with the evil man in the end was a violent. I did not like the...more
The Bronze Ring: *This story was slightly shocking. The way they dealt with the evil man in the end was a violent. I did not like the...more
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Review: The Story of Pretty Goldilocks or The Beauty with Golden Hair is a French literary fairy tale written by Madame d'Aulnoy.
This is not the The Story of the Three Bears.
A very interesting tale. "Rapunzel" in this version is quite an independent lady but also rather arrogant. (She hire Charming as a hitman, (yep, Charming is "the Prince") to kill another admirer. She has more than one admirer and marries more than once. This version also has talking animals and no witches.
This is not the The Story of the Three Bears.
A very interesting tale. "Rapunzel" in this version is quite an independent lady but also rather arrogant. (She hire Charming as a hitman, (yep, Charming is "the Prince") to kill another admirer. She has more than one admirer and marries more than once. This version also has talking animals and no witches.
The number-one, most-read, best-loved book of my childhood. This has dozens of fairy tales you've heard of (though in their more traditional gory, scary forms), and loads you haven't. Amazing folk tales and fairy stories, unDisneyed. Plenty of unhappy endings, and sometimes the ugly guy wins. Now that I've thought about it, I really want a new copy to read as an adult (the binding on my copy collapsed in 1977, but I continued to read the book, in pieces, for years afterward.)
I was leaning towards a four star, but couldn't make up my mind. I enjoyed the collection of fairy tales. There were many fairy tales that were introduced to me and ones I heard throughout my childhood. I understood the time that these were written, but I did find the repetitiveness of "being pretty" and "pretty princess" was tedious. I want girls with wit and character and adventure, not idly standing for their princes to come and save them. It was a great review of yesterday's fairy tales tho...more
Great collection, spanning both folk and literary fairy tales. Aimed at children, the contents are sometimes toned-down from the originals. Even aside from that, these versions lack the vigor of the originals--I don't know how else to describe it, but they seem a little watered-down or refined--but as an anthology of great fairy tales, Lang's color Fairy books still deserve to be considered classics.
If you love fairy tales the is thee collection you should have. There is a book for each color: red, olive, yellow, brown, pink, red, etc and they are filled with stories from all over the world. Enough fairy tales to keep you reading a re-reading for a lifetime. But be warned: after reading them you may wonder why you settled for anything less than "Once upon a time..." in your stories
I recommend this book because it was very interesting to read all of the fairy tales that could be from many different places. I absolutely loved this book and every fairy tale in it. I can't wait to read the other fairy tale books by Andrew Lang and illustrated by Charles van sandwyk. I thought the stories were very different from any story's that I have ever read I loved them all.
Hmmm. I loved this book and fairy tales in general when I was a kid bur retracing them only makes me a little sad at the realization that they are pretty much tales of horrible family betrayal and that the real moral of many of them is that as long as you are the most beautiful princess and the youngest then it will probably turn out ok.
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Dec 08, 2008
Summer
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
all fairy tale fanatics
Recommended to Summer by:
my mother
I have read every single Lang color fairy book. They are/were my fairytale bibles growing up and I still love them. The collection is exhaustive and expansive. Tales from all over the globe and many versions of common tales like cinderella. Most stories are short so I get a couple in before bed every night. Not for reading straight through.
The first of the "color" fairy tale collections compiled/edited by Andrew Lang, including many of the best known fairy tales. I loved it, and all the others, as a 5th or 6th grader at Northwood ES. I own them all in Dover editions, although the spines have faded so much you can't really tell them apart by color.
Finally finished the first of this series. Started the book (on Kindle) last year. Most of the Grimm/Anderson tales were familiar, but sanitized. The last two tales were hard to read as they were written in the Scottish dialect. A surprise story in this book was an excerpt of Gulliver's travels. Next up, the "Red Fairy Book".
Fun to read short fairy tales. A good escape when I just have a few minutes. The collection is very extensive and has a lot of the really great classics and some of the hard to find tales as well.
I didn't like the "cliff-note" versions of some of the stories. The abbreviated Arabian Nights and Greek Mythology stories really didn't fit or mesh well with the other stories.
I didn't like the "cliff-note" versions of some of the stories. The abbreviated Arabian Nights and Greek Mythology stories really didn't fit or mesh well with the other stories.
These are lovely old stories that have not been sanitized for the protection of children. Reading them as an adult will bring back memories of these stories from your own childhood, or perhaps introduce you to stories you've heard of, but have never actually read or heard told. One before bedtime every night.
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Andrew Gabriel Lang was a prolific Scots man of letters. He was a poet, novelist, and literary critic, and a contributor to anthropology. He now is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales.
The Andrew Lang Lectures at St. Andrews University are named for him. He also rewrote the famous The 12 Dancing Princesses, originally done by the Grimm Brothers. Andrew Lang did the French version.
More about Andrew Lang...
The Andrew Lang Lectures at St. Andrews University are named for him. He also rewrote the famous The 12 Dancing Princesses, originally done by the Grimm Brothers. Andrew Lang did the French version.
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