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  The Chapbook Nursery Rimes  

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The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XI. The Period of the French Revolution.

XVI. Children’s Books.

§ 9. Fairy Tales.


This is not the place to go into the anthropology of fairy tales in general, or of these fairy tales in particular. It is quite probable that Perrault’s son did actually tell the tales himself to his father, much as he heard them from his nurse. Their delightful simplicity made them instantly popular. An English translation appeared, apparently, in 1729, 11  by Robert Samber. The stories passed speedily into chapbooks, as did those of Madame d’Aulnoy about the same time. It should be added that they were provided with “morals”: Red Riding Hood proved that
       
  Wolves for sure there are
Of every sort, and every character;
while Bluebeard exemplified “curiosity, thou mortal bane.”		   22
Note 11. Advertised in The Monthly Chronicle, March 1729 (Andrew Lang, on the authority of Austin Dobson, in Perrault’s Popular Tales, with Introduction, etc., 1888). The earliest surviving copy is the sixth edition, 1764, giving both French and English. Mrs. Trimmer, born in 1741, was familiar with the tales in her childhood. [ back ]

CONTENTS · VOLUME CONTENTS · INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
  The Chapbook Nursery Rimes  
 
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