The Fairy Book

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Fairy Book, by Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

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Title: The Fairy Book The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew
Author: Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
Release Date: November 7, 2006 [EBook #19734]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE FAIRY BOOK.
THE BEST POPULAR STORIES SELECTED AND RENDERED ANEW.

BY
MISS MULOCK
THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."

NEW YORK AND LONDON: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.
* * * * *

DEDICATED
TO
LITTLE OLIVE.
* * * * *

PREFACE.
A preface is usually an excrescence on a good book, and a vain apology for a worthless one; but, in the present instance, a few explanatory words seem necessary.
This is meant to be the best collection attainable of that delight of all children, and of many grown people who retain the child-heart still--the old-fashioned, time-honored classic Fairy-tale. It has been compiled from all sources--far-off and familiar; when familiar, the stories have been traced with care to their original form, which, if foreign, has been retranslated, condensed, and in any other needful way made suitable for modern British children. Perrault, Madame d'Aulnois, and Grimm have thus been laid under contribution. Where it was not possible to get at the original of a tale, its various versions have been collated, compared, and combined; and in some instances, when this proved still unsatisfactory, the whole story has been written afresh. The few English fairy tales extant, such as Jack the Giant Killer, Tom Thumb, etc., whose authorship is lost in obscurity, but whose charming Saxon simplicity of style, and intense realism of narration, make for them an ever-green immortality--these have been left intact, for no later touch would improve them. All modern stories have been excluded.
Of course, in fairy tales, instruction is not expected; we find in them only the rude moral of virtue rewarded and vice punished. But children will soon discover for themselves that in real life all beautiful people are not good, nor all ugly ones wicked; that every elder sister is not ungenerous, nor every stepmother cruel. And the tender baby-heart is often reached quite as soon by the fancy as by the reason. Nevertheless, without any direct appeal to conscience or morality, the Editor of this collection has been especially careful that there should be nothing in it which could really harm a child.
She trusts that, whatever its defects, the Fairy Book will not deserve one criticism, almost the sharpest that can be given to any work--"that it would have been better if the author had taken more pains."
* * * * *

CONTENTS.
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD
HOP-O'-MY-THUMB
CINDERELLA; OR, THE LITTLE GLASS SLIPPER
ADVENTURES OF JOHN DIETRICH
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
LITTLE ONE EYE, LITTLE TWO EYES, AND LITTLE THREE EYES
JACK THE GIANT KILLER
TOM THUMB
RUMPELSTILZCHEN
FORTUNATUS
THE BREMEN TOWN MUSICIANS
RIQUET WITH THE TUFT
HOUSE ISLAND
SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE RED
JACK AND THE BEAN-STALK
GRACIOSA AND PERCINET
THE IRON STOVE
THE INVISIBLE PRINCE
THE WOODCUTTER'S DAUGHTER
BROTHER AND SISTER
LITTLE RED-RIDING-HOOD
PUSS IN BOOTS
THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN YOUNG GOSLINGS
THE FAIR ONE WITH GOLDEN LOOKS
THE BUTTERFLY
THE FROG-PRINCE
THE WHITE CAT
PRINCE CHERRY
LITTLE SNOWDROP
THE BLUE BIRD
THE YELLOW DWARF
THE SIX SWANS
THE PRINCE WITH THE NOSE
THE HIND OF THE FOREST
THE JUNIPER TREE
CLEVER ALICE
* * * * *

THE
SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD.
Once there was a royal couple who grieved excessively because they had no children. When at last, after long waiting, the queen presented her husband with a little daughter, his majesty showed his joy by giving a christening feast, so grand that the like of it was never known. He invited all the fairies in the land--there were seven altogether--to stand godmothers to the little princess; hoping that each might bestow on her some good gift, as was the custom of good fairies in those days.
After the ceremony, all the guests returned to the palace, where there was set before each fairy-godmother a magnificent covered dish, with an embroidered table-napkin, and a knife and fork of pure gold, studded with diamonds and rubies. But alas! as they placed themselves at table, there entered an old fairy who had never been invited, because more than fifty years since she had left the king's dominion on a tour of pleasure, and had not been heard of until this day. His majesty, much troubled, desired a cover to be placed for her, but it was of common delf, for he had ordered from his jeweller only seven gold dishes for the seven fairies aforesaid. The elderly fairy thought herself neglected, and muttered angry menaces, which were overheard by