|
Wonder Tales
Six French Stories of Enchantment
Vintage (paperback) UK; Farrar, Straus & Giroux (hardback & paperback) US
Once upon a time, in the Paris of Louis XIV, five ladies and a gentleman - all of them urbane aristocrats - seized on a new enthusiasm for Mother Goose stories and decided to write them down. Telling stories resourcefully and artfully was a key social grace for them, and with these elegant narratives, they consciously invented the modern fairy tale as we still know it today.
For this beautiful anthology of six masterpiece Wonder Tales, Marina Warner invited the collaboration of five writers with a special sympathy for the French stories they render here in burnished, cunning and amusing English. The White Cat (translated by John Ashbery), The Subtle Princess (Gilbert Adair), Bearskin and Starlight (Terence Cave), The Counterfeit Marquise (Ranjit Bolt) and The Great Green Worm (A.S. Byatt) are as unforgettable today as they were when they were first published centuries ago.
 'Once upon a time, not so long ago, fairy tales were for children, offering sweetened versions of timeless truths to infant minds...Now along comes Marina Warner, most benevolent and learned of good fairies, to suggest that fairy tales are aimed at adults too...The wit and freshness of these stories come as a shock of delight (and) the translators all succeed in creating a lively and dancing tone of voice.'
- MICHELE ROBERTS The Times Literary Supplement
 'A heady mixture of barbed wit and subversive satire points a devastating dart at society's pretensions and injustice...Spiced up and shot through with political satire, the (stories) carry sly digs and in-jokes; the rough edges of the traditional tale are polished up but retain their integrity.'
- LUCY LETHBRIDGE - Scotsman Weekend
'These fairy tales for grown-ups...are elegant, fantastical, and sophisticated, with a surprising erotic edge...The sheer relish with which the modern writers have tackled them is a delight. (They) have risen to the occasion by polishing their prose style to a glistening lustre.'
- CRESSIDA CONNOLLY The Tatler
 extract
amazon.co.uk
amazon.com
|
