Fairy Tales of Frank Stockton

by Frank R. Stockton

Presents twenty-four of the nineteenth-century writer's works, including "The Griffin and the Minor Canon," "Old Pipes and the Dryad," and other tales

Genres: Fantasy

432 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Frank Richard Stockton was an American writer and humorist, best known today for a series of innovative children's fairy tales that were widely popular during the last decades of the 19th century. Stockton avoided the didactic moralizing common to children's stories of the time, instead using clever humor to poke at greed, violence, abuse of power and other human foibles, describing his fantastic characters' adventures in a charming, matter-of-fact way.

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mixed bag. I probably would have loved it when I was a kid, but some are just too dated for me now. Especially the Ting-a-Ling stories, which I didn't finish... very violent and casual about it. Others, otoh, might have been part of the childhood of Norton Juster as they seem a bit like primitive The Phantom Tollbooth. I'll have to reread it before passing it along.

[Genevieve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny and a real delight.


(Is it bizarre that some of the stories remind me of Osip Mandelstam?)