Princess Stories: A Classic Illustrated Edition
Grade 1-5 - From a frontispiece of a Maxfield Parrish Cinderella to small black-and-white engravings and everything in between, this edition of classic princess stories showcases artists from the Golden Age of Illustration, roughly the 1880s to the 1920s. Edens has brought together eight stories, "Cinderella," "The Frog Prince," "The Little Mermaid," "The Princess and the Pea," "Rapunzel," "Sleeping Beauty," "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," and "Beauty and the Beast," into one nostalgic volume. Arthur Rackham, Walter Crane, Jesse Wilcox Smith, Charles Robinson, Kay Nielsen, and Edmund Dulac are among the American and European artists represented. The edition is rich in language, tone, and picture and despite the disparate nature of each artist's style, it somehow comes together as a classic whole. There is no attribution as to which translation or retelling Edens is drawing from but all of the stories are traditionally retold. He is faithful to Perrault's "Cinderella" in which she attends two balls, losing her slipper at the second, and he also seems to be quite aware of the more or less "authentic" translations of the Brothers Grimm. A preface does identify the dates when the stories first appeared and spins the compiler's world view that these princesses are "powerful, if not indomitable." A handsome addition to collections where a treasury of stories is useful.- Harriett Fargnoli, Great Neck Library, NYCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.