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POPULAR TALES

Charles Perrault

Edited by Andrew Lang

ARNO PRESS

A New York Times Company

PERRAULT'S POPULAR TALES

LANG

London

HENRY FROWDE

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE AMEN CORNER, E.C.

PERRAULT'S

POPULAR TALES

EDITED

FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITIONS, WITH INTRODUCTION, &c.

BY

ANDREW LANG, M.A. LATE FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE

Oxford AT THE CLARENDON PRESS MDCCCLXXXVIII

INTRODUCTION.

CHARLES PERRAULT.

In Eisen's portrait of Charles Perrault, the medallion which holds the good-natured face under the large perruque is being wreathed with flowers by children. Though they do not, for the most part, know the name of their benefactor, it is children who keep green the memory of Perrault, of the author of Puss in Boots and Bluebeard. He flies for ever vivu' per ora virum, borne on the wings of his stories into the hearts of the young.

Perrault was a man of letters, a member of the French Academy, and a man of the world, who lived for seventy-five years, from 1628 to 1703. He was a man of wit, and of taste, who knew how to make the most of his opportunities, and who kept his temper, as a rule, under the control of his judgment. He served for many years in the royal administration under Colbert, who was the great finance minister of Louis XIV. Perrault lived to see the zenith of French literature, the age of Racine, of Molière, of Boileau.

The history of Perrault's Popular Tales is a curious one. They were published in 1697, when Perrault was nearly seventy, under the name of his son, Claude Perrault, under the title Histoires ou Contes du Temps passè, avec des Moralitès. Par M. Perrault, de l'Academie Francoise. It is to this title that the familiar name of Contes de Ma Mère l'Oye (Tales of Mother Goose) is usually attached. In the preface to the first edition, Perrault says that the tales were composed at the request of the ladies of the court, and that he was obliged to write them down.

The prose tales, which alone concern us here, are ten in number:

1. La Belle au bois dormant (The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood).
2. Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood).
3. La Barbe bleue (Bluebeard).
4. Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté (Puss in Boots).
5. Cendrillon ou la Petite Pantoufle de verre (Cinderella, or The Little Glass Slipper).
6. Le Petit Poucet (Hop-o'-My-Thumb).
7. Les Fées (The Fairies).
8. Donner, Galant, et La Belle au bois dormant (The Sleeping Beauty, in a later version).
9. Riquet à la Houppe (Ricky of the Tuft).
10. Peau d'Âne (Donkeyskin).

The tales in verse, which are not included in this edition, were published earlier, between 1691 and 1695, in a collection called Recueil de pièces choisies. They are tales which, in many cases, resemble those in prose, but are not identical with them.

The prose tales, as we have them, are not entirely Perrault's invention. Many of them can be traced back to earlier sources, both French and foreign. For example, La Belle au bois dormant has clear affinities with stories in the Heptameron of Margaret of Navarre, and with the Sun, Moon, and Talia of Basile. Cendrillon is found in various forms in other countries, and there is a version in the Cabinet des Fées. Le Petit Chaperon rouge is known in many lands.

Perrault did not invent these stories, but he clothed them in a style which has made them famous. He polished the rough diamond of tradition. He gave them their literary form, which has been the model for countless adaptations. He was the first to give them that grace and delicacy which belongs to the literature of the French Court, while retaining the essential spirit of the folk-tale. He added the Moralités at the end of each tale, which are characteristic of his age and his literary intentions.

This edition aims to present the text as closely as possible to the first edition of 1697, keeping the original spelling and punctuation, so that the reader may have before him the work as it first appeared to the world.

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