The Yellow Fairy Book is a wonderful collection of tales from all over the world. There are such familiar old favorites as the "Story of the Emperor's New Clothes," "The Tinder-box," "How to Tell a True Princess," and "The Nightingale." There are less familiar tales by Madame d'Aulnoy and from the collections of Andersen and Grimm. Many tales come from Hungary, Poland, and Russia, and there are German, French, and English stories, too. There are traditional tales of the American Indians, and three others come from Iceland. All in all, this collection contains 48 stories, all narrated in the clear, lively prose for which Lang was famous. Not only are Lang's generally conceded to be the best English versions of standard stories, his collections are the richest and widest in range. Reprint of the first 1894 edition. About the Editor: Andrew Gabriel Lang (1844-1912) was a prolific Scots man of letters, a poet, novelist, literary critic and contributor to anthropology. He now is best known as the collector of folk and fairy tales. He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, St Andrews University and at Balliol College, Oxford. As a journalist, poet, critic and historian, he soon made a reputation as one of the ablest and most versatile writers of the day. Lang was one of the founders of the study of "Psychical Research," and his other writings on anthropology include The Book of Dreams and Ghosts (1897), Magic and Religion (1901) and The Secret of the Totem (1905). He was a Homeric scholar of conservative views. Other works include Homer and the Epic (1893); a prose translation of The Homeric Hymns (1899), with literary and mythological essays in which he draws parallels between Greek myths and other mythologies; and Homer and his Age (1906). He also wrote Ballades in Blue China (1880) and Rhymes la Mode (1884). |