The Classic Fairy Tales

A lot of stories where torn out ! Even snow white very disappointed

My mother got this book for me when I was a child, and needless to say, it changed the way I learned fairy tales. Iona Opie presents some classic fairy tales as they were ORIGINALLY written... Dark, lurid, mysterious, and pessimistic. The artwork littered throughout the pages is commendable even if it were its own title. I love this book so much that I have purchased it as a gift for countless friends, including a pen pal from Japan who found it amazing that our Western fairy tales (the stories told to our ancestors as young children) were indeed so graphic. Great, great book -- a classic. Hope this one never goes out of style.

Everything the Opies write is fascinating and approachable, and this book is a revelation. All these tales, familiar and no-longer-so-familiar, are great to read in this age of sanitised, bowdlerised, or Disneyfied folktales. But the historical details of how the stories evolved, what and from where the variants are, and the significance of various elements of the stories - all these are of great general interest, and are also invaluable to the storyteller needing to do a bit of research.