What a delightful book and a very interesting find! When we think of fairy tales there are a few names that always come to mind – the Grimm brothers, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christian Anderson. But, just as in other fields, there were woman at the origin of this literary genre whose accomplishments and works have been suppressed and forgotten. This is particularly surprising when the works of the women Jane Harrington profiles here were immensely popular for a hundred years.
These seven women who were friends in a literary salon in Paris from the 1690s to the 1710s not only coined the name ‘fairy tale’ but published more than seventy stories that were circulated in collections across Europe, including the originals of ‘Rapunzel’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’. They were Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, Henriett-Julie Murat, Charlotte-Rose La Force, Marie-Jean L’Heritier, Catherine Bernard, Catherine Durand, and Louise d’Auneuil. Harrington has researched what is known about their lives to write short biographies of each of them to put them into historical context. She also translated and adapted stories by each of them to include in this collection.
There are all kinds of gentle rebellion in in these stories – frank tales of abusive husbands, arranged marriages, intelligent and resourceful female heroes (no Damsels in Distress here), Hero Quests for the women, too. Ideas that were at the time quite subversive, as well as criticism of the incompetent kings and cruel nobles (carefully written to get around the censors). The ‘canon’ of fairy tales and high fantasy does not celebrate strong female characters (until quite recently).
The biographies are sad – several of these women were forced into arranged marriages, often with much older husbands who were after their doweries, being forced into convent imprisonment when their intelligent challenges to Patriarchal authority became too much, especially as Louis XIV became more piously Catholic and intolerant. Harrington gives a good flavour of the history of the time and illuminates these stories with the gender tensions, particularly as some of these women were lesbian in a culture that tolerated male homosexuality but not lesbians.
A beautifully designed and illustrated book – Khoa Le has produced lovely classic fairy tale images that greatly add to the book and the heavy paper, good quality printing and overall appearance increased my enjoyment of the stories.
~ review by Samuel Wagar
Author: Jane Harrington, art by Khoa Le
Workman Publishing, 2025
223 pg. Hardback £22 / $40 Can / $30 US
