"For many readers the fascination of these essays will lie . . . in the revelatory detail of his close
comparative textual readings."
--Times Literary Supplement
"Should be read by anyone who feels that our postindustrial culture has outgrown the need to express its desires
and anxietes in the material of traditional narrative."
--Australian Folklore
The University Press of Kentucky Web Site, March, 2000
Summary
Explores the historical rise of the literary fairy tale as genre in the late seventeenth century. In his examinations
of key classical fairy tales, Zipes traces their unique metamorphoses in history with stunning discoveries that
reveal their ideological relationship to domination and oppression.
