Long Ago and Far Away

Download or read book Long Ago and Far Away written by and published by Hesperus Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brand new translations of the earliest versions of best-known and most-loved fairy tales, with an introduction by renowned mythographer Marina Warner Returning to some of the earliest written records of these stories, before the moralizing of the British Victorians and the sugarcoating of Walt Disney, unearths narratives that differ radically from those that children are told to this day. This collection contains brand new translations of "Beauty and the Beast," "Sleeping Beauty" and "Cinderella" in their original Pentamerone versions; the Grimms' "Hansel and Gretel;" Perrault's "Little Red Riding Hood;" and many others. Originally recorded orally and handed down through generations, early fairy tales were receptacles of sexual depravity (including incest, rape, and necrophilia) and murder. Marina Warner, one the finest of contemporary literary minds, explains in her introduction the reasons behind the tales' evolution from their original versions and the appeal they have today.