Fairy tales from the British Isles

by Amabel Williams-Ellis

Physical 328p., ill. ; 23cm. Children's stories. Fairy tales -- Great Britain.

Genres: Fiction

328 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Amabel Williams-Ellis was an English writer, critic, and early member of the Bloomsbury Group. Over the course of her life, Amabel Williams-Ellis wrote more than 40 books. These included novels, books for children, and histories. She wrote regularly for periodicals, and edited multiple volumes of folk legends, fairy tales, and science fiction. She was significantly inspired by the writer and explorer Mary Kingsley, who she had met in childhood, and who she described as 'an anthropologist before anthropology'. The Times described Amabel Williams-Ellis as someone who 'wrote books to find things out, and seemed prepared to take on anything.'
She died on 27 August 1984, at the age of 90. Shortly before her death, she published a memoir: “All Stracheys Are Cousins”.

Reviews

[Janhmmn · Rating 4 out of 5]

For home-ed book group this month, the children need to read folk / fairy tales and write one of their own. I don't need asking twice to read traditional tales - we have quite a large collection of collections of them at home. My favourite book by this author is her retelling of the Arabian Nights, which I have read aloud a couple of times, so I picked this up on the strength of that and I enjoyed it, though not quite as much as the Arabian Nights.
There are a lot of tales in this book that were completely new to me, some had familiar elements and a few were well known. The stories near the beginning of the book were more for young children, so we skipped a few of those, but read the rest. Some are just odd, some a bit unsatisfactory, perhaps because of our modern need for justice and resolution, and some were really good. There are some nice illustrations in the copy we have, quite a few line drawings scattered amongst the text, and also a few colour plates. I particularly liked the appendix which had some notes on the origins of the stories, though I would have liked a little more detail in some cases.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 3 out of 5]

This a collection of tales based on British faity tales and legends. Unfortunately, whether because they have been re-told for children, I found them all a bit dry and lacking any if the magic of the originals. However, its the sort of book you can read to get a feel for the legends that you can find elsewhere to read.

My favourite story is Childe Roland.