The Modern Fairies: A Novel

by Clare Pollard

Why don't they tell you it is the beautiful princess who becomes the evil queen; that they are just the same person at different points in their story?

Versailles, 1682. It's a city of the rich, a living fairy-tale, Louis XIV's fever dream. It's a place of opulence, beauty, and power. But strip back the lavish exterior of polite society, and you'll find a dark undercurrent of vicious gossip and secrets. Nobody is safe here - no matter how highly born they are.

Nobody knows this better than Madame Marie d'Aulnoy. Each week, a rogue group - elites, intellectuals, mostly women - gather at her Parisian home. Finding comfort and creative camaraderie, the group act out Contes de Fées - fairy tales - at a salon that will change the course of literature forever. But among the members, a wolf is lurking. A force more dangerous than any they could conjure in their tales, watching, waiting, reporting, and threatening to destroy them one by one.

Brilliant and bawdy, witty and provocative, and inspired by real events, THE MODERN FAIRIES is a dazzling novel about scandals and secrets, and the delights and dangers of storytelling in dark times.

'Pollard's future, as a novelist, is very bright indeed' The i, praise for Delphi

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Historical, France, Literary Fiction, Fairy Tales

288 pages, Paperback

First published July 23, 2024

Reviews

[Christy fictional_traits · Rating 4 out of 5]

'...Mother Goose tales, as they often call them: of ogres, enchantments, and talking creatures. Since she was a small girl she has adored such stories. They could make a game of it, taking it in turns to give them a modern spin'.

It's late 17th Century France, and Louis XIV has ruled for long enough to ensure that all of France revolves around his omnipotence as the Sun King. However, for some of Paris' literati, King Louis' absolutism is a point of critique, and criticising the King is.a sure way to end your life, 'Louis XIV, understanding that story telling is political has placed the literati under strict surveillance'. Undeterred, Madame d'Aulnoy gathers together a salon of mostly women to take turns to re-tell old Mother Goose stories. Perhaps unsurprisingly, those stories seem to somewhat mirror the lives of the King, court, and the salonniéres at Madame's residence, 'Ah, these Modern Fairies! In each age-old tale they borrow, there are hard-won truths...'.

The Modern Fairies is a unique story, inspired by the real adventures of the Modern Fairies in 17th Century France. They helped shape many of the well-known fairy tales we are familiar with today. Clare Pollard not only shares some of these re-tellings but also recreates the people and environment in which they are told, lifting the lid on their imagined lives and the potential debauchery they lived within. The vulgarity and circumstances, narrated about the salon attendees reaches satirical levels and underscores the almost fantastical world in which Louis XIV created and perpetuated. Dispersed throughout the book are the re-tellings of the fairy tales themselves, revealing glimpses of just how the stories we now know and love were shaped.

This is a very unique book, enhanced by the fact that it is inspired by real events. However, if you're easily offended by bawdy, vulgar, humour, this might not be for you.

'We come to escape into the human imagination, which spins gold from the straw base of reality!'.

[Olive Fellows (abookolive) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sumptuous. I can't believe a huge portion of this actually happened.

This was one of my favorite fiction books of 2024!
Click here to hear more of my thoughts over on my Booktube channel, abookolive.

[K.J. Charles]

Fascinating and revolting account of the salons at which what became our versions of the traditional fairy tales were elaborated. Full of the utter revoltingness - political, moral, personal, hygienic - of Versailles and the horror of the Sun king's grotesque regime. Hugely readable with a sapphic sort-of
love affair and just enough glimmers of human decency to keep you going. A cracking historical novel.

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

The origins of fairy stories are lost in the myths of our ancient grandmothers, maidservants and wise women. When they were first set down in writing, the authors took their own liberties with the stories and they evolved into the classics we know today. In the salons of Paris in Louis XIV’s reign, it was popular to share these tales, the storytellers putting their own spin on them, often with underlying political satire.

The Modern Fairies is as dark as any fairytale but it’s also very funny and very bawdy. The narrator shares her memories of these times with the reader in an intimate (often very intimate!) way. We learn about the debauchery of life at Versailles in deservedly unflattering terms. Men and women lived in fear of losing their positions, if not their heads. Women who fell out of favour with their husbands or the king would be exiled to chateaux that acted as prisons or locked up in convents. These were bloodthirsty times and revolution against them was just around the corner.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. The author takes liberties with timelines but not with the basic facts. It was interesting to learn how fairy tales evolved and about the lives of those responsible for the earliest written versions. Highly recommended as an interesting fun read.

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin General UK for a review copy.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pollard has given us a fictionalised account of a group of fairy tellers, who started the literary, written fairy tale tradition. We are back at the time of the French Sun King, Louis the XIV, in a salon in Paris where Marie D'Aulnoy and her friends meet and recount their written fairy tale adaptations.

Like any other story, these adaptations are imprinted by the people telling the story. She successfully shows the interlinking between the fairytales themselves , the personal stories of the writers, and the effect of living under the reign of Louis XIV. Thus, the tales are shaped by the cultural and political times in which they were written down and may have also been used to send veiled messages as regards what was happening and morality.

Excellently done, another Pollard I enjoyed.

An ARC gently provided by author/publisher via Netgalley

contes de fées

[Eren · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just can not get into it. Too many names, too many people I can’t figure out why I should care about them or if I should and some of the stuff included to be spicy or saucy just did not land with me. Not for me.

[Sara the Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know that question that comes up from time to time? Where would you go if time travel were possible? I've absolutely wondered that on more than one occasion. What I haven't spent much time on is where I wouldn't go. After reading Clare Pollard's utter triumpth of a novel I can safely add at least one location. If it even remotely resembled the picture Ms. Pollard paints I would not set foot in Paris during the reign of Louis XIV for a bajillion dollars.

Pollard's Paris is a decadent nightmare city where face paint, powder, and carefully placed beauty marks barely conceal a turd choked cesspool. The city is populated by vainglorius nobles who orbit the Sun Kings throne, dancing attendance and avoiding his capricious moods (considering the dude bathed ONCE A YEAR I'd have avoided him too) and nearly overwhelmed by an ever increasing number of poverty stricken, furious lower classes who can barely scrape together a few francs while Louis dines on stuffed partridge and pipes champagne through the fountains of Versaille.

Literary salons are allll the rage in Louis's Paris and chief among them is that of Madame d'Aulnoy's where a select group meets to share fairy tales. It is a source of delicious scandal that most of the members are women and there are more than few sordid stories circulating in the city about their romantic entanglements, private perversions and political ideas. But when those stories find their way to Louis's chief of police, Madame d'Aulnoy realizes there is a traitor in their midst.

Pollard is a simply superb writer. She lulls you into a sweet, sweet haze of princesses and castles only to stick you with the poinard of a truly superior, utterly vulgar wit. Even as you tsk tsk at the oppulence and wastefulness of a world rapidly spirally toward revolution you fall in love with these women and feel desperately for the lives of oppression and abuse they suffer through. In a world where men were practically encouraged to beat their wives and a woman could be sent to prison or a convent for the high crime of being annoying is it any wonder they'd seek out comfort and empathy wherever they could find it?

This was a totally gorgeous, utterly appalling read. If, like me, you were not aware that it was possible for a book to be both those things I strongly encourage you to snap this decadent, disgusting little treat right up and devour it like the juicy, succulent pear it is.

Just eat around the maggoty, brown bits.

[quillnqueer · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a book grounded in telling fairytales, it sure was bored of telling fairytales from the very beginning.

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set during the reign of King Louis XIV of France, a small group of artists and writers meet in a salon. They share and act out retellings of the “Donkey Skin” stories (aka fairy tales). It is a time of censorship and persecution, and the group suspects someone among them is a spy. These are mostly grim stories with disturbing content, such as sexual violence, many forms of death, and abuse. They read as more of a collection of short stories tied together by the group’s musings. Well-known tales are retold, and the reader will likely recognize many versions of classic tales that have been told and retold over the ages. These are not for children, though. I can appreciate the writing, and the creativity, but it is too dark for my taste.

[erika🪻 · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMO AMO AMO AMO !!!!

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone else who grew up with Charles Perrault’s fairy tales, this will be so much fun! Pollard crafts a quirky litfic story set in the 1600s but very modernized language - think Coppola’s Marie Antoinette movie.

This is based on real events involving Perrault and the women around him, and how they crafted his famous fairy tales around the reign of Louis XIV. It’s an interesting take, and a shorter novel that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Pollard is definitely a writer I’ll be reading from again!

[Tori · Rating 5 out of 5]

This very possibly will be my favorite book of 2024. Absolutely BRILLIANT.

[Judy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the concept of pairing fairy tales with France in the 1600s but hated the raunchy sexual exploits.

[Samantha Krivensky · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect depiction of gilded 17th century France, interspersed with the crude and vulgar reality of the aristocracy. *chefs kiss*

[Janai Burgess · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got like 30% into this book and I can’t tell you what’s happening. There’s no way I’m finishing it 🙂‍↔️ sorry book clurb

[Elena Longo · Rating 5 out of 5]

*4,5
Ultimamente in quello che leggo, sono sempre più alla ricerca di originalità, non fine a se stessa ma funzionale a veicolare un messaggio. Clare Pollard crea un meccanismo un po’ alla Decamerone per cui il lettore si trova ad ascoltare una serie di storie che vengono narrate all’interno di un salotto letterario nella Francia di Luigi XIV. Questo escamotage permette di inserire un forte elemento di critica al regime. In più la narrazione viene messa in atto da un misterioso narratore onnisciente consolidando ulteriormente la libertà nella narrazione. L’esplorazione del contesto storico risulta ulteriormente di interesse grazie all’inserzione di diversi elementi che possono risultare bizzarri ma che nella maggior parte dei casi sono assolutamente veri. L’autrice é abile nel riempire i buchi storici con la propria inventiva in modo del tutto verosimile inserendo anche l’elemento romance. Il tono é irriverente e spregiudicato, come del resto la personalità delle protagoniste femminili, riuscendo a tenere il lettore agganciato e ben intrattenuto.

[Jamie Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the horniest book I have ever read, and I've read Penelope Douglas.

A sumptuous feast of a book, Full to the brim with debauchery, seduction and greed. The illicit content is tantalizing, the extremity of sexuality is shocking and seductive. At times, there seems no room to breath before you are bombarded with the next provocation.

That is the book's beauty, beneath the artifice and avarice lurks a wonderfully layered analysis of feminine agency. They use fairy tales to voice their grievances and depict their own fantasies, the gorier the better when a prince is concerned. The escape these stories allow is evident, though fraught for the outside begins to seep in and the threat of the Big Bad Wolf looms closer. The corruption of their safe space mirrors that of a fairy tale, a princess swoons and is betrayed, and her life unravels as she helplessly scrambles to find out what happened.

[Ylenia Capotondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Perché nessuno dice mai che è la bella principessa a diventare la regina cattiva, che sono la stessa persona in momenti diversi della storia? "

[Laura]

dnf...interesse non pervenuto

[Rachel Lilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't believe I actually won a GoodReads giveaway!

Such a clever concept filled with even more clever spins, riddles and 'morals'. I definitely enjoyed it, but the writing style isn't the most digestible. I know that that adds to the overall aesthetic and enhances the historical element. After all, there are very few things more pompous than Versailles, but it curbed my interest nonetheless. I found myself on a turtle race to finish.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reviewer describes this book as “elegant and decadent, vulgar and clever, enchanting and dark.“

Yes.

I would even add charming, although it dances lightly through heavy issues, showing them clearly but continuing the dance all the same. And while I braced myself for a sad conclusion, a ray of light broke through the gloom just in time to leave me happy.

Beautifully written, I probably would have rated it 4 stars if I had cared a whit about the Louis XIV era.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF - Overwritten, with a narrator voice that sounds like a dry history text book and characters that are flat.

eARC provided by publisher via NetGalley.

[Simo Trailibri · Rating 3 out of 5]

A modo suo originale, ma di sicuro non imperdibile. Direi piacevole, ma purtroppo non l' ho trovato per niente scorrevole.

[alessia · Rating 3 out of 5]

“L’amore non è fuoco da soffocare dentro l’anima; tutto ci tradisce, la voce, il silenzio, gli occhi. I fuochi mal coperti divampano più forti”.

[savanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

oh this was SCRUMPTIOUS!!!!!!!!

[victoria marie]

Winner of the 2025 Tadeusz Bradecki Prize

The Tadeusz Bradecki Foundation has awarded the inaugural Tadeusz Bradecki Prize to Clare Pollard for
The Modern Fairies (Fig Tree) for its ‘history and magic, novelistic depth and sharpness of fable’. Created to
honour the late Tadeusz Bradecki – international theatre director, actor and writer – the Prize is awarded
annually for a book in which fiction and non-fiction writing combine in an original and exciting way.

Chair Francis Spufford said:
‘My fellow judges and I are delighted to award the first Tadeusz Bradecki Prize to Clare Pollard’s
The Modern Fairies – a book whose combination of history and magic, novelistic depth and sharpness
of fable, beauty and bestial power, embody exactly the ambition we want the Prize to reward.’

Kate Sinclair, wife of Tadeusz Bradecki and founder of the Prize, said:
‘Tadeusz was a great adventurer and polymath and would have loved the risk-taking of The Modern
Fairies, which plays with storytelling and history, fiction and non-fiction, with extreme bravura.
Hats Off!’

Two runners-up prizes were also awarded:
Benjamín Labatut for The Maniac (Pushkin Press)
Tanja Maljartschuk for Forgottenness, translated by Zenia Tompkins (Bullaun Press)

Judges Francis Spufford (Chair), Carole Welch and Krzysztof Zanussi selected a shortlist of six books from
97 submissions by 70 publishers from the UK and Europe. They present works that combine story-telling
fiction and non-fiction in original ways, encompassing a range of artistic genres, disciplines, cultures and
subjects. The shortlist included multi-award-winning writers and relative newcomers from a broad range
of publishers.

*

author’s note:

"This novel is inspired by the real adventures of "the Modern Fairies" of the late 17th century who shaped fairytales as we know them. It is also a creative engagement with the brilliant tales that they wrote. I first learnt about these contes de fées through the work of Marina Warner, Jack Zipes, and Angela Carter, all of whom I highly recommend for further reading. I have taken many liberties in the service of a good story - from speculating wildly about the sex lives of the Salonières to playing extremely loose with the chronology - though I must tell you, an almost unbelievable amount of this is true."

_____

Clare Pollard is an award-winning poet and playwright based in London. She is the author of five poetry collections and the former Editor of the Modern Poetry in Translation magazine. Her first novel, Delphi, was published by Fig Tree in 2022. The Modern Fairies is her second novel.

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historical fiction but not as we know it. Irreverent, filthy, sparkling. Laying bare the pustulent morality and hypocrisy of the court of the sun king, stories within stories, perfectly crafted. Rich and abundant, like a pear tree laden with heavy golden fruit.

[Noriboo]

DNF at 15%.

What pulled my interest was the premise of the story: people regaling their life story through fairytales, let's go!

The parts where we got the snippets of the fairytales were interesting to me, but the characters telling these stories were just not interesting and fell flat, in my opinion.
The writing gives the air of wanting to come off as whimsical, but I missed some depth into the emotions and feelings. Why did they gather? We get superficial descriptions of the bourgeoisie in attendance at the event, but no information on why we should care about them.
Unfortunately, it is just not enough to make me want to continue the story. Unfortunately.

•••

I received an ARC through Netgalley. My opinions are my own.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bridgerton incontra Papà Castoro intorno al focolare domestico dei salotti intellettuali francesi (pre Rivoluzione).
Il narratore onnisciente descrive à la Alberto Angela gli intrighi della corte reale, librotrasportando il lettore tra l’opulenza di balli, nobiltà, pettegolezzi e velenose pietanze.

Le forti protagoniste femminili (e Perrault) si dilettano in abbellimenti di racconti di ‘balie e tutrici’, mentre Il Re Sole continua a forgiare un impero fatto di fasti, ori e cortigiani. Fuori Versailles intanto il popolo congela, e freme.

Perrault é un padre di famiglia molto umano e ingenuo, mentre Mme d’Aulnoy é una scaltra padrona di casa che nasconde un lato oscuro sebbene a tratti dolce.

Personaggio adorabilissimo (e Lady oscarissimo), la Principessa di Conti.

[ReadingForFun · Rating 1 out of 5]

At times lyrical but mostly overwritten & overstuffed. This focuses almost entirely on the people telling the stories – there are so many they can only be thinly drawn.

If you wanted to see the evolution of these modern fairytales or how they were subversive you repeatedly get: "you know this story already" and the narration moves on.

Best for fans of lit-fic than those interested in fairytales or the court at Versailles.