Carol Ann Duffy's versions of Grimm include some very familiar tales - Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, Ashputtel (Cinderella) and Little Red-cap - and some that will be new to many readers. But there will be surprising and unexpected elements in them all. The layers of varnish that have built up over the years in the re-telling of these classic folk tales have been stripped back. An award-winning poet, Carol Ann Duffy shows, unsurprisingly, an unflinching eye for the telling detail and the germane turn of phrase, so that the stories appear with all the immediacy and imaginative potency of the originals.

A collection of children's books on the subject of fables, folk and fairy tales.

A strange little man helps the miller's daughter spin straw into gold for the king, on the condition that she will give him her first-born child.

A tiny man saves a young girl's life three times. The third time, she has no way of repaying him, so he asks for her first-born child. What will the girl do when the little man comes to collect?

The famous fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm - stories like Snow White , Red Riding Hood , and Rumplestiltskin - are know to millions of people around the world and are deeply embedded in the collective psyche. In this charming account, writer and scholar Valerie Paradiz reveals the true story of how the fairy tales came to be. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, collectors and editors of more than 200 folk stories, were major German intellects of the nineteenth century, contemporaries of Goethe and Schiller. But as Paradiz reveals here, the romantic image of the two brothers traveling the countryside, transcribing tales told to them by peasants, is a far cry from the truth. In fact, more than half the fairy tales the Grimm brothers collected were actually contributed by their educated female friends from the bourgeois and aristocratic classes. While German folkloric scholars-all of them male-fancied themselves the keepers of the cultural flame, it was a handful of women who ensured that millions would know the stories of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella by heart. Set against the backdrop of the chaotic Napoleonic wars and the years of high German romanticism, Clever Maids chronicles one of the most fascinating literary collaborations in European history and brilliantly captures the intellectual spirit of the men and women of the age. Even more, it illuminates the ways in which the Grimm tales, with their mythic portrayals of courage, sacrifice, and betrayal, still speak so powerfully to us today.

Six alternative versions of the old legend, Rumpelstiltskin.

A strange little man helps the miller's daughter spin straw into gold for the king on the condition that she will give him her first-born child.

Everyone knows Rumpelstiltskin’s story—or thinks they do. But this innocent-seeming tale hides generations of women’s shrewd accounts of their relationships with men. And the verdict is not flattering. The fairytale may count among the world’s oldest dirty jokes. The theme of the tale, an observation repeated and varied throughout, mocks male inadequacy in many forms, beginning with sexual failure. The punchline misplaced, over time its wickedly funny insights about adult life passed for childish nonsense. The story hides, in plain sight, criticism of workplace sexual harassment—centuries before society took notice of the indignity. Rumpelstiltskin tells a feminist tale with lessons for men and women, about what women said to each other when they thought their private conversation and complaints passed unnoticed. In the story’s different versions, the Brothers Grimm, who recorded the tale, missed women’s wry observations.

GERMAN POPULAR STORIES BY THE BROTHERS GRIMM A reprint of the famous Brothers Grimm book of fairy tales, German Popular Stories (a.k.a. Children's and Household Tales or Kinder- und Hausmarchen). This book, published for the centenary of the 1812 Children's and Household Tales, 'radically changed the destiny of what we today call the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm'. The book features the 1868 book of Edgar Taylor's translations of the Brothers Grimm, the first translations of the tales into English, which included reprints of the first two editions of 1823 and 1826 of the Grimms' stories in one volume, plus the original notes by Taylor. The book is illustrated with remarkable drawings by one of the great artists of the Victorian era, George Cruikshank, with an introduction by John Ruskin. The wealth of additional material includes letters by Sir Walter Scott and the Grimms, a note on Cruikshank, extracts from Gammer Grethel, Taylor's follow-up Grimm book, and R. Meek's Introduction to the 1876 edition of Grimm's Goblins: Grimm's Household Stories. Many famous fairy tales are included here, making their first, influential appearance in English: 'The Fisherman and his Wife', 'Tom Thumb', 'The Elves and the Shoemaker', 'King Grisly-beard', 'The Juniper Tree', 'Hansel and Gretel', and 'Snow White'. Edited and introduced by renowned writer and authority on fairy tales, Jack Zipes, professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. In addition to his scholarly work, he is an active storyteller in public schools and has worked with children's theaters in Europe and the United States. Some of Jack Zipes' major publications include Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales (1979), Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion (1983, rev. ed. 2006), Don't Bet On the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England (1986), The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World (1988), Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter (2000), Speaking Out: Storytelling and Creative Drama For Children (2004), Hans Christian Andersen: The Misunderstood Storyteller (2005), Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre (2006), and a guide to fairy tales cinema (2011). Jack Zipes has also translated The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (1987) and edited The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (2000), and The Great Fairy Tale Tradition (2001). Most recently he has translated and edited The Folk and Fairy Tales of Giuseppe Pitre (2008) and Lucky Hans and Other Merz Fairy Tales (2008) by Kurt Schwitters. Includes illustrations, bibliography, appendices and notes. ISBN 9781861713964. 432 pages. www.crmoon.com"