The Fairy Book

Fairy Book, by Dinah Maria
Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

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Title: The Fairy Book The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered
Anew
Author: Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
Release Date: November 7, 2006 [EBook #19734]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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FAIRY BOOK ***

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THE FAIRY BOOK.
THE BEST POPULAR STORIES SELECTED AND RENDERED

ANEW.

BY
MISS MULOCK
THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."

NEW YORK AND LONDON: HARPER & BROTHERS,
PUBLISHERS.
* * * * *

DEDICATED
TO
LITTLE OLIVE.
* * * * *

PREFACE.
A preface is usually an excrescence on a good book, and a vain apology
for a worthless one; but, in the present instance, a few explanatory
words seem necessary.
This is meant to be the best collection attainable of that delight of all
children, and of many grown people who retain the child-heart still--the
old-fashioned, time-honored classic Fairy-tale. It has been compiled
from all sources--far-off and familiar; when familiar, the stories have
been traced with care to their original form, which, if foreign, has been
retranslated, condensed, and in any other needful way made suitable for

modern British children. Perrault, Madame d'Aulnois, and Grimm have
thus been laid under contribution. Where it was not possible to get at
the original of a tale, its various versions have been collated, compared,
and combined; and in some instances, when this proved still
unsatisfactory, the whole story has been written afresh. The few
English fairy tales extant, such as Jack the Giant Killer, Tom Thumb,
etc., whose authorship is lost in obscurity, but whose charming Saxon
simplicity of style, and intense realism of narration, make for them an
ever-green immortality--these have been left intact, for no later touch
would improve them. All modern stories have been excluded.
Of course, in fairy tales, instruction is not expected; we find in them
only the rude moral of virtue rewarded and vice punished. But children
will soon discover for themselves that in real life all beautiful people
are not good, nor all ugly ones wicked; that every elder sister is not
ungenerous, nor every stepmother cruel. And the tender baby-heart is
often reached quite as soon by the fancy as by the reason. Nevertheless,
without any direct appeal to conscience or morality, the Editor of this
collection has been especially careful that there should be nothing in it
which could really harm a child.
She trusts that, whatever its defects, the Fairy Book will not deserve
one criticism, almost the sharpest that can be given to any work--"that
it would have been better if the author had taken more pains."
* * * * *

CONTENTS.
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD
HOP-O'-MY-THUMB
CINDERELLA; OR, THE LITTLE GLASS SLIPPER
ADVENTURES OF JOHN DIETRICH

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
LITTLE ONE EYE, LITTLE TWO EYES, AND LITTLE THREE
EYES
JACK THE GIANT KILLER
TOM THUMB
RUMPELSTILZCHEN
FORTUNATUS
THE BREMEN TOWN MUSICIANS
RIQUET WITH THE TUFT
HOUSE ISLAND
SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE RED
JACK AND THE BEAN-STALK
GRACIOSA AND PERCINET
THE IRON STOVE
THE INVISIBLE PRINCE
THE WOODCUTTER'S DAUGHTER
BROTHER AND SISTER
LITTLE RED-RIDING-HOOD
PUSS IN BOOTS
THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN YOUNG GOSLINGS
THE FAIR ONE WITH GOLDEN LOOKS

THE BUTTERFLY
THE FROG-PRINCE
THE WHITE CAT
PRINCE CHERRY
LITTLE SNOWDROP
THE BLUE BIRD
THE YELLOW DWARF
THE SIX SWANS
THE PRINCE WITH THE NOSE
THE HIND OF THE FOREST
THE JUNIPER TREE
CLEVER ALICE
* * * * *

THE
SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD.
Once there was a royal couple who grieved excessively because they
had no children. When at last, after long waiting, the queen presented
her husband with a little daughter, his majesty showed his joy by giving
a christening feast, so grand that the like of it was never known. He
invited all the fairies in the land--there were seven altogether--to stand
godmothers to the little princess; hoping that each might bestow on her
some good gift, as was the custom of good fairies in those days.

After the ceremony, all the guests returned to the palace, where there
was set before each fairy-godmother a magnificent covered dish, with
an embroidered table-napkin, and a knife and fork of pure gold, studded
with diamonds and rubies. But alas! as they placed themselves at table,
there entered an old fairy who had never been invited, because more
than