Description
A rare discovery in the world of fairy tales - now for the first time in English.
With this volume, the holy trinity of fairy tales - the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christian Andersen - becomes a quartet. In the 1850s, Franz Xaver von Schoenwerth traversed the forests, lowlands, and mountains of northern Bavaria to record fairy tales, gaining the admiration of even the Brothers Grimm. Most of Schoenwerth's work was lost - until a few years ago, when thirty boxes of manu scripts were uncovered in a German municipal archive.
Now, for the first time, Schoenwerth's lost fairy tales are available in English. Violent, dark, and full of action, and upending the relationship between damsels in distress and their dragon-slaying heroes, these more than seventy stories bring us closer than ever to the unadorned oral tradition in which fairy tales are rooted, revolutionizing our understanding of a hallowed genre.
'Schoenwerth's tales have a compositional fierceness and energy rarely seen in stories gathered by the Brothers Grimm or Charles Perrault' -The New Yorker
'Schoenwerth's legacy counts as the most significant collection in the German-speaking world in the nineteenth century' - Daniel Drascek, University of Regensburg
Franz Xanver von Schoenwerth (1810-1886) was born in Bavaria and had a successful career in law
and the Bavarian royal court before devoting himself to researching the customs of his homeland and preserving its fairy tales and folklore.
Maria Tatar chairs the program in folklore and mythology at Harvard, and has edited and translated many collections of fairy tales.
Eeika Eichenseer is a historian and preservationist working for the Bavarian government and the director of the
Franz Xaver von Schoenwerth Society.
With this volume, the holy trinity of fairy tales-the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christian Andersen-becomes a quartet. In the 1850s, Franz Xaver von Sch nwerth traversed the forests, lowlands, and mountains of northern Bavaria to record fairy tales, gaining the admiration of even the Brothers Grimm.
About the Author
Maria Tatar chairs the program in folklore and mythology at Harvard. She is the author of many acclaimed books on folklore and fairy tales, as well as the editor and translator of The Turnip Princess, The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition and The Grimm Reader. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Reviews
These eminently enjoyable tales offer a rich new take on the material of the Grimms and Andersen ... The tales are vigorous, direct, and less artful then those of the Grimms, suggesting greater authenticity, closer to the source * Library Journal *
Book Information
ISBN 9780143107422
Author Franz Xaver von Schonwerth
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Penguin Classics
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 240g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 128mm * 24mm
