VICTORIAN FAIRY TALES

A delightful anthology of fairy tales from the close of the Romantic period to the early twentieth century, showing the extraordinary imaginative diversity of the genre and the Victorian fascination with fairyland. Authors range from those best-known for their work as writers of fairy tales, and others central to the nineteenth-century literary canon such as Thackeray and Ford Madox Ford. Includes a selection of original illustrations by some of the greatest figures of Victorian art such as Richard Doyle, Arthur Hughes, and Walter Crane. The Introduction explores the impulses behind the stories and their connection to national identity and debates over scepticism and belief, their centrality to the literary ouput of the period and interest in the irrational and dreaming mind. Includes historically informed notes and biographies of the authors, a chronology of Victorian fairy tales, and an appendix in which some of the included authors discuss the nature of fairy tale and its importance.