Beautiful Angiola

The Lost Sicilian Folk and Fairy Tales of Laura Gonzenbach

By: Jack Zipes (Editor)

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Hardcover | 4 September 2003 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
628 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
25.4 x 17.8 x 3.0

Hardcover

RRP $108.00

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In one of the most startling literary discoveries of recent years, Jack Zipes has uncovered this neglected treasure trove of Sicilian folk and fairy tales. Like the Grimm brothers before her, Laura Gonzenbach, a talented Swiss-German born in Sicily, set out to gather up the tales told and retold among the peasants. Gonzenbach collected wonderful stories - some on subjects that readers will know from the Grimms or Perrault, some entirely new - and published them in German. Her early death and the destruction of her papers in the Messina earthquake of 1908 only add to the mystery behind her achievement.
"Beautiful Angiola," a nineteenth-century collection of stories in the great tradition of fairy and folk tales now translated into English for the first time, is certain to become an instant classic. Gonzenbach delights us with heroines and princes, sorcery and surprise, the deeds of the brave and the treacherous, and the magic of the true storyteller. "The Green Bird," "The Humiliated Princess," "Sorfarina," "The Magic Cane, the Golden Donkey, and the Little Stick that Hits" are titles destined to become new favorites for readers everywhere. Yet while the stories enchant us, the wry taglines with which they often end ("And so they remained rich and consoled, while we keep sitting here and are getting old") gently bring us back to earth.

Industry Reviews

"These books are the first English translations of a collection of Sicilian folk and fairy tales, published in High German by a Swiss woman who was born in Messina in 1842!" -- Applessed Quarterly

"Jack Zipes has made accessible to English readers a fine collection of Sicilian folk and fairy tales heretofore little known outside the circle of specialists in Italian folk narrative." -- Linda J. Lee, University of Pennsylvania, Western Folklore

"...a treasure...All the magic elements of the folk and fairy tales are in these stories, but with a delightfully Sicilian angle: stories where a man's word is his life, a woman can leave her home and determine her own fate, and working hard reaps reward. When I finished the last page, I knew this book was a labor of love and deserved my respect." -- Kathryn Thurman, Territorial Tattler

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