Michael Newton, ed., Victorian Fairy Tales (2015)
“If we wish to understand the Victorians, we should read their dreams,” says editor Michael Newton in his introduction to Victorian Fairy Tales. This impressive new one-volume collection goes a long way toward facilitating that goal. Along with the most important, influential, and frequently anthologized stories of the period, including “The King of the Golden River” by John Ruskin, “The Rose and the Ring” by W.M. Thackeray, “The Reluctant Dragon” by Kenneth Grahame, “The Selfish Giant” by Oscar Wilde, and “The Golden Key” by George MacDonald, it collects some lesser-known and wonderful tales by Mary de Morgan, Andrew Lang, Laurence Housman, E. Nesbit and others. With its insightful introduction and excellent notes, it will be useful for students and scholars while remaining inviting and non-intimidating for the casual reader or enthusiast of the genre.
The tone of the tales varies widely, from comic verging on the burlesque (“The Rose and the Ring”) to melancholy verging on the maudlin (“The Wanderings of Arasmon” by Mary de Morgan). As Newton points out, “the fairy tale is the most eclectic of forms,” and this collection showcases its versatility. Some writers augment and expand on the rather spare and laconic style of the traditional fairy tale, giving it a lyrical and poetic flavor. Others take an amusing and lightly humorous tone, playing with the narrative conventions that have come down from the past, and using them as a way to both highlight and mask the very modern concerns that lurk beneath the surface.
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| Illustration by Walter Crane |
A good example of the latter mode is “The Queen Who Flew,” an early tale by the great twentieth-century novelist Ford Madox Ford, which was one of the few stories that I hadn’t encountered before. A young queen beset by greedy regents and troublesome revolutionaries leaves her country behind thanks to a magical flower that enables her to fly. As she journeys to various other lands her experiences help to give her maturity and knowledge of what is truly valuable in life. This story could be read by a child, certainly, but there are depths of adult understanding wound into its seemingly casual and episodic narrative.
Many of the stories were profusely illustrated when first published, and though regrettably the pictures could not all be included, the few examples that punctuate the text give a sense of the artistic style of the day. I appreciated the chance to read more about the artists and even about the original bindings in the notes (though pictures would have been even better). A further notable feature of this volume is an appendix that collects four brief but essential essays on “What is a fairy tale?” by John Ruskin, Juliana Horiatia Ewing, George MacDonald, and Laurence Housman. These defend and articulate the power of a form that has often been dismissed as mere fodder for the uneducated. As Ewing says, fairy tales “treat, not of the corner of a nursery or a playground, but of the world at large, and life in perspective; of forces visible and invisible; of Life, Death, and Immortality.” The publishers put this statement on the back cover of the book; it could stand as a motto for lovers of the fairy tale in all its incarnations.
In short, whether you have an abiding love for or passing interest in the Victorian fairy tale, you’ll find what you are seeking in this splendidly produced book.
Publication date: May 1, 2015Â
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The Emerald City Book Review Archive 
This book looks so interesting to me, and the book cover is gorgeous! I enjoy the work of several of the authors in the collection, so I'll be on the lookout for this book.
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It's truly a classic collection.
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Nice! I'd definitely like to read that.
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You might have encountered some of the stories before, but having them all together –with excellent notes — is great.
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This sounds absolutely fascinating. I have read a few of these works in collections by their authors, but what a good idea for a book.
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A good idea, and beautifully executed. I didn't even mention the ribbon marker, which I love.
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Do they only have the one story from Mary de Morgan? I cherish her so much — I always feel she'd have ended up famouser if she'd been a dude. "The Necklace of Princess Fioromonde" is my true favorite. It's marvelously dark and strange.
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There's only one by De Morgan, "The Wanderings of Arasmon." I love her too — I'm looking for her collected fairy tales but it's out of print and awfully expensive.
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I have a book of Victorian fairy tales, but I think the one has more that I haven't read, so I will look this up – it looks like a beautiful book to own and I love the idea of reading fairy tales from a certain time period to understand that culture better. Great review!
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If you have the Michael Patrick Hearn collection from Pantheon (I do too), there is a lot of overlap in the contents. The notes and the essays at the end are a plus though.
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I'm not a huge fan of fairy tales, but I'm not familiar with many of the tales you mentioned and the collection sounds quite unique. You have me intrigued!
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The good thing with a collection is that if there's a story you don't like you can skip it. There's a huge variety here so I hope one or more might catch your fancy.
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I loved this book! I thought it contained such a wide variety of stories. Did you have a favourite?Excellent review, by the way. 🙂
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It's really hard to pick favorites between such different stories. Some were from old favorite authors like George Macdonald and E. Nesbit, and others were from writers I really want to investigate more, like Ford Madox Ford and Mary de Morgan. Basically I loved them all.
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I'm reading this now! Slowly, so as to savor each tale. It's funny, though – the publication date is this May, but when Robin and I were in the library the other day, we found a copy of the same collection from 1998 (or maybe it was 1988?), with the same title and from the same publisher. I didn't have my e-ARC with me to compare, but as far as I could tell, both the introductory essay and the collected tales were identical. So I suppose this is really a re-release. (Which doesn't matter, but I thought it was an interesting coincidence!)
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Really? How weird, I don't think it could be the same introduction, I don't think Michael Newton is even old enough to have done that. His CV shows that he started publishing in 2002. I have The Victorian Fairy Tale Book from Pantheon edited by Michael Patrick HEARN — there is considerable overlap in the stories. The date would be about right for that one. But you say it was the same title and publisher?
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Same title, and I'm nearly certain it was the same publisher, and they had included the same illustrations for the stories I had read so far (which was only a few of them, plus the rest of the stories seemed to match my recollection of what is in the ARC – but I could be wrong about those, since I couldn't compare side by side. You may be right that the intro was different. I'm thinking this could be a second edition, perhaps, with a new intro?
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Well, Oxford is certainly billing it as a new collection; I can't find anything about an earlier edition. I would be really curious to know if you track down the copy you saw.
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