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Stories from the Pentamerone is a collection of the earliest European fairy tales written in the Neapolitan language in the seventeenth century by Giambattista Basile, an Italian poet, courtier, and fairy tale collector. He prepared the collections of the oldest recorded forms of many well-known European fairy tales.
The first unabridged English translation taken directly from Basile's monumental Lo cunto de li cunti (1634-1636), this edition is fully annotated and illustrated, with an extensive bibliography.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a rage for colorfully illustrated books—especially fairy tales and fantasy adventures. English artist Warwick Goble (1862–1943), an expert in watercolor techniques, was among the era's premier illustrators. This one-of-a-kind collection gathers the best of his fairy tale imagery, featuring eighty-six visions of memorable scenes from timeless folk tales. The international array of illustrations begins with Charles Kingsley's The Water-Babies, followed by pictures from Grace James's Green Willow and Other Japanese Fairy Tales, as well as Folk-Tales of Bengal and the Italian Stories from the Pentamerone. Images inspired by The Fairy Book; The Best Popular Fairy Stories Selected and Rendered Anew include such familiar characters as Little Red-Riding-Hood, Cinderella, Tom Thumb, and Puss in Boots. The collection concludes with imaginative depictions from The Book of Fairy Poetry, including scenes from Shakespeare's fairy classics, The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream, along with works by Milton, Tennyson, and other poets. Readers of all ages will cherish this unique book and its splendid combination of art and literature. Original Dover (2008) publication. 96pp. 83/8 x 11. Paperbound. ALSO AVAILABLE Rackham's Fairy Tale Illustrations in Full Color, Arthur Rackham. 64pp. 83/8 x 11. 0-486-42167-8 Nielsen's Fairy Tale Illustrations in Full Color, Kay Nielsen. 64pp. 83/8 x 11. 0-486-44902-5 For current price information write to Dover Publications, or log on to www.doverpublications.com and see every Dover book in print.
Composed in the 1630s, Giambattista Basile's The Tale of Tales, later known as the Pentameron, is a sophisticated, affectionate, often wicked parody of Boccaccio's 14th century masterpiece, the Decameron, containing fifty tales within an intricate framing story. Importantly, among its stories are the earliest literary versions of famous fairy tales such as Cinderella, Rapunzel, The Sleeping Beauty and Hansel and Gretel. This is only the fourth translation of the complete text into English. With its scholarly introduction, notes, and up-to-date bibliography, it will appeal to anyone studying European literature or the fairy tale in general, its history and subsequent development, as well as anyone wishing to trace specific themes within the genre and their different treatments."
The fairy tales and legends of olden China have in common with the "Thousand and One Nights" an oriental glow and glitter of precious stones and gold and multicolored silks, an oriental wealth of fantastic and supernatural action. And yet they strike an exotic note distinct in itself. The seventy-three stories here presented after original sources, embracing "Nursery Fairy Tales," "Legends of the Gods," "Tales of Saints and Magicians," "Nature and Animal Tales," "Ghost Stories," "Historic Fairy Tales," and "Literary Fairy Tales," probably represent the most comprehensive and varied collection of oriental fairy tales ever made available for American readers. There is no child who will not enjoy their novel color, their fantastic beauty, their infinite variety of subject. Yet, like the "Arabian Nights," they will amply repay the attention of the older reader as well. Some are exquisitely poetic, such as "The Flower-Elves," "The Lady of the Moon" or "The Herd Boy and the Weaving Maiden"; others like "How Three Heroes Came By Their Deaths Because Of Two Peaches," carry us back dramatically and powerfully to the Chinese age of Chivalry. The summits of fantasy are scaled in the quasi-religious dramas of "The Ape Sun Wu Kung" and "Notscha," or the weird sorceries unfolded in "The Kindly Magician." Delightful ghost stories, with happy endings, such as "A Night on the Battlefield" and "The Ghost Who Was Foiled," are paralleled with such idyllic love-tales as that of "Rose of Evening," or such Lilliputian fancies as "The King of the Ants" and "The Little Hunting Dog." It is quite safe to say that these Chinese fairy tales will give equal pleasure to the old as well as the young. They have been retold simply, with no changes in style or expression beyond such details of presentation which differences between oriental and occidental viewpoints at times compel. It is the writer's hope that others may take as much pleasure in reading them as he did in their translation.
Within four days, the date-tree had grown as tall as a woman, and out of it came a Fairy, who said to Zezolla, “What do you wish for?” Before Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, Basile penned the first modern literary version of the Cinderella fairytale. It is the story of Zezolla, the daughter of an Italian Prince, who is betrayed by her governess and forced to live the life of a servant—that is until the King announces a feast. With assistance from a date-tree given to her by the Fairies of Sardinia, Zezolla is able to attend the feast and her life is forever changed. In addition, this book contains The She-Bear—a close variant of The Cat Cinderella, also from Giambattista Basile’s The Pentamerone—for an English readership to enjoy. [Folklore Type: ATU-510: Cinderella and Catskin – A + B (Persecuted Heroine + Unnatural Love)]
From Court to Forest is a critical and historical study of the beginnings of the modern literary fairy tale. From Court to Forest is a critical and historical study of the beginnings of the modern literary fairy tale. Giambattista Basile's Lo cunto de Ii cunti written in Neapolitan dialect and published in 1634-36, comprises fifty fairy tales and was the first integral collection of literary fairy tales to appear in Western Europe. It contains some of the best known fairy-tales types, such as Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Cinderella, and others, many in their earliest versions. Although it became a central reference point for subsequent fairy tale writers, such as Perrault and the Grimms, as well as a treasure chest for folklorists,Lo cunto de Ii cunti has had relatively little attention devoted to it by literary scholars. Lo cuntoconstituted a culmination of the erudite interest in popular culture and folk traditions that permeated the Renaissance. But even if Basile drew from the oral tradition, he did not merely transcribe the popular materials he heard and gathered around Naples and in his travels. He transformed them into original tales distinguished by vertiginous rhetorical play, abundant representations of the rituals of everyday life and the popular culture of the time, and a subtext of playful critique of courtly culture and the canonical literary tradition. This work fills a gap in fairy-tale and Italian literary studies through its rediscovery of one of the most important authors of the Italian Baroque and the genre of the literary fairy tale.
