The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves, and Other Little People

My husband loves this book. He has been looking for a book that describes "little people" for a long time.

Cleverly written, chuck full of items of interest. Just a pocket of information for the researcher. Loved this book.

I am so thrilled to see that this book is still in print. When I was a child, I used to read and re-read an originally published copy (still called The Fairy Mythology then) in her dusty, musty library. I've searched and searched for the book, not even able to recall the title until the other day, when I typed in the original title and came up with the re-print. What a wonderful treat to know that I will be able to own a copy again. It completely cast a mysterious, magical spell over my adolescence. You will love this book.

This book was originally published in 1880 and is an excellent history of the shaping of Faerie. It starts with the origin of the term and then documents the development of the ideas and tales of Fairies in many cultures. This book is full of summaries of stories, portions of text in their original language (some of which also appear translated), footnotes to naming conventions, pronunciations, criticisms, etc. I agree with the other reviewer that this book is not for everyone and in many cases is a tough read, but it is well worth it. In short, this would be a great textbook for a class on the history of Faerie.

This book explores fairies and other fantastic characters in different folklore like german and english, but also in different times, from Persia to Middle-Age. It has few black and white illustrations, but the point of this book is not to be pictorical but informative.It's like taking a tour through different times and cultures viewing the roles fantasy characters have been playing in folklore.