I have this weird, fascinating-yet-off-putting book of fairy tales originally published in French in 1697. The translated version is have was published in 1969, so I have had it my entire life (and then some). I remember reading it as a kid and thinking "that's weird; and these drawings are creepy" and putting it aside for 30+ years.
So good for me for hanging on to creepy the book and lugging it across the country and finally getting back to it, because these are well and simply told classic tales with, as the back of the book accurately states, "extraordinary full-page engravings by Gustave Dore that show clearly why this artist became the foremost illustrator of his time." The engravings are like Durer crossed with Pieter Bruegel the Elder crossed with, I don't know, Watteau? What with the pantaloons? Those crossings maybe make no sense, but I'm talking about the clean spidery lines and the depth of activity in the picture frame and the animals in the setting and, of course, the pantaloons.
The book contains the following stories: "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Blue Beard", "The Master Cat, or Puss in Boots", "The Fairies", "Cinderells, or The Little Glass Slipper", "Ricky of the Tuft", and "Little Tom Thumb". Most of the stories have the same moral (helpfully spelled out for you in verse at the end of the story; sometimes it's even restated in a second moral, in case the first doesn't quite work for you), and this is it: pretty girls nab rich husbands. The End.
I think that's why I hated it as a kid -- the highest aspiration in life of men was to be rich and get the pretty girl; of women, to be pretty and get the rich guy. How dull. This made me not very excited to be racing toward adulthood.
But now I understand the stories and their morals as actually being cynical and funny. He points out again and again that the mere appearance of wealth and success and the genetic luck of beauty bring a person all of the admiration and respect of their fellow citizens, regardless of character or accomplishments. He also points out that society will reward you for your wealth and beauty no matter how you come by it (birth, fairies, cats dressed like the fourth Musketeer; what have you). That these stories have endured for hundreds of years not as cautionary tales but as beacons of hope for the ugly, unloved, ignored and poor (i.e. everyone) says more than we wanted to know about human nature.
As for the Dover edition book I have, the engraving of the inexplicable Puss in Boots (tell me again why he's so intent on fixing up his master with the rich chick? Is it just because, as a cat wearing boots and a large hat with a feather in it, he loves to lie and scheme? Like, of course any cat flaunting that sartorial splendor would be a hard-working toady) is priceless. That pussy cat WORKS those thigh high boots, let me tell you.
The other greatest thing about this book is the language in Cinderella. Here are the choice quotes:
When she had finished her work she used to sit amongst the cinders in the corner of the chimney, and it was from this habit that she came to be commonly known as Cinder-slut.
After her meanest step-sister asks if Cinderella would like to go to the ball, and she says she knows it would be no place for her, the sister says:
"That is very true, people would laugh to see a cinder-slut in the ballroom."
Ha ha! Ok, so the Middle English meaning of "slut" in the 1400s was "slovenly woman" or "kitchen maid or drudge", but it was being used as a derogatory term with a sexual connotation by the 1700s. So what did the Frenchman Perrault mean in 1697? Given the tenor of the stories, I imagine he pretended to the first meaning and hoped to slyly get away with the second. Which makes me love his stories all the more.
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