Immediately afterwards the tales appeared published at Paris
in a volume entitled, _Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passe,
avec des Moralites--Contes de ma Mère l'Oye_. The earliest
translation into English was in a book containing French and
English, _Tales of Passed Times, by Mother Goose, with
Morals. Written in French by M. Charles Perrault and
Englished by R.S., Gent_. An English translation by Mr.
Samber was advertised in the English _Monthly Chronicle_,
March, 1729. Andrew Lang, with an introduction, has edited
these tales from the original edition, published by the
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1888. These tales made their way
slowly in England, but gradually eclipsed the native English
tales and legends which had been discouraged by Puritan
influence. In Perrault's time, when this influence was
beginning to decline, they superseded the English tales,
crowding out all but _Jack the Giant-Killer, Tom
Hickathrift, Jack and the Beanstalk, Tom Thumb_, and _Childe
Rowland_.
1650-1705. _Fairy Tales_, by Madame D'Aulnoy. In France
there were many followers of Perrault. The most important of
these was Madame D'Aulnoy. She did not copy Perrault. She
was a brilliant, witty countess, and brought into her tales,
entitled _Contes de Fées_, the graces of the court. She
adhered less strictly to tradition than Perrault, and
handled her material freely, making additions,
amplifications, and moral reflections, to the original tale.
Her weaving together of incidents is artistic and her style
graceful and not unpleasing. It is marked by ornamentation,
sumptuousness, and French sentimentality. It shows a lack of
naïveté resulting from the palace setting given to her
tales, making them adapted only to children of high rank.
Often her tale is founded on a beautiful tradition. _The
Blue-Bird_, one of the finest of her tales, was found in the
poems of Marie de France, in the thirteenth century. Three
of her tales were borrowed from Straparola. Among her tales
the most important are:--
_Graciosa and Percinet_. (Basile.)
_The Blue-Bird_. (Contains a motif similar to one
in _The Singing, Soaring Lark_.)
_The White Cat_. (Similar to _Three Feathers_ and
_The Miller's Boy and the Cat_.)
_The Hind in the Wood_. (Similar to _Rumpelstiltskin_.)
_The Good Little Mouse_. (Basile.)
_The Fair One with the Golden Locks. (Ferdinand
the Faithful.)_
_The Yellow Dwarf_.
_Princess Belle Etoile_. (Straparola.)
The careful translation of Madame D'Aulnoy's tales by Mr.
Planché faithfully preserves the spirit of the original.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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