Victorian Fairy Tales

In his introduction, Zipes (Don't Bet on the Prince, 1986) claims that written folk tales came late to England because Calvinist tradition stressed development of moral character and conduct in children at the expense of imagination. By the mid-19th century - after folk tales of other countries were published in England - there occurred an explosion of stories about dragons, elves, ogres and fairies. Many of these stressed spontaneity and compassion, thus implicitly criticizing Victorian stuffiness and materialism. This collection's earliest tale (1839), however, (Catherine Sinclair's Uncle David's Nonsensical Story about Giants and Fairies), concerns a lazy, self-indulgent boy who is rescued from an ogre by a fairy; whereupon, he "scarcely ever stirred without a book in his hand" and "never lay on a sofa again." Ex-alcoholic George Cruikshank concludes his 1854 Cinderella tale with a temperance lecture by the fairy godmother, which convinces the king to eschew wine at his son's wedding feast. In contrast, Mary Morgan's A Toy Princess concerns a stuffy kingdom in which a lively little princess is replaced by a look-alike mannequin that says only, "No thank you: certainly; and just so." When the princess returns after years of living "as merry and lighthearted as a bird" with a fisherman's family, the court is appalled by her spontaneous behavior. She is all too happy to return to the simple life and marriage to the fisherman's son. In Edith Nesbit's The Last Dragon, another feisty princess tames the earth's only remaining dragon with kindness and copious drafts of petrol (its favorite quaff). Renamed "Fido," the 70-foot monster spends its days giving children rides on its back. Some of England's most famous writers - Carroll, Dickens, Kipling, Wilde - are featured in this collection. The end result is a copious plum pudding of goodies that should satisfy the child in all of us. (Kirkus Reviews)