This one came from Jill’s library, passed to me because she felt that I would enjoy it since I enjoy fairy tales. In fact, some of the stories included in this volume are anthologized from some of the books on my backlist. The selection criteria here is mainly tales that involve women, tales that were available in English, and/or tales that caught the attention of Carter. Some are fairly common, like “Little Red Riding Hood,” while others are incredibly bizarre, at least to our culture, such as the Eskimo stories.

Maybe it’s because I read this straight through, instead of simply reading a tale a night, but I came away strangely ambivalent towards these tales (with the exception of the Eskimo tales, which were too strange for words–short, vulgar, amazing). Not a bad collection, but if you are a fairy tale junkie, you’ll want to go to her sources.

[Finished 5 March 1994]