Flora Annie Steel (1847–1929)

I thought that I was familiar with most of the traditional English fairy tales, but this book is filled with some decidedly weird ones! The ones which are well known are easily identifiable as those where the hero is a valiant example of mankind, the princess is a typically lovely damsel, or the humour doesn't stray too far to the macabre, but I'm glad that Steel included some of the stranger tales in this volume. Just like other fairytales, they tell us how humanity lives, the things we fear, and ultimately of the intellectual creativity that abounded even in simpler times. Some of the lesser known stories may be a bit more disjointed in their telling and lack that crucial magic that makes other stories more popular, but some of them are even more amusing in their raw, whimsical forms. I particularly enjoyed the luxurious story and the eleves in "The Golden Snuff-Box," a tale which I am surprised hasn't gotten a movie treatment yetm and the story of Mr. and Mrs. Vinegar, a couple so frivolous and ridiculous that you can't help but laugh at their misfortune. "The Bogey-Beast" was also a surprisingly good little tale, for all its simplicity. In its raw form it doesn't have a lot going for it, but its moral about finding the benefit in whatever the universe gifts you with is excellent, and I couldn't help but find the old woman to be similar in character to the equally cheerful and indominatable Sophie Hatter from Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle. Arthur Rackham's illustrations for the stories were also very good, as expected, and benefitted from the oversized page-size of this particular volume. My favourite illustration, which I hadn't been familiar with before, was the ones to accompany "The Two Sisters." His composition showing the first sister hiding in an apple tree from the witch perfectly captures the central conflict between the characters and utilizes his trademark anthropomorphized tree to excellent regard. I kind of wish that Rackham had chosen to illustrate more of these stories in the style of modern children's books, but the publication limits of the time dictate that he mostly stick to books of compiled tales. It's a great way to explore a range of stories and a range of his artwork, but the broader stories would have given him so much more room to explore them - and you know I'm always in favour of more artwork!… (meer)