Erotic Fairy Tales: A Romp through the Classics
Like Rollins (see The Empress's New  Lingerie, reviewed above), Szereto explains that the sexual  content of most fairy tales was deleted by the likes of the  Brothers Grimm to make them more family-friendly. Instead of  researching and restoring the original erotic elements of each  tale, however, the author chose to work from the clean versions  and eroticize them as she saw fit, making the stories her own.  The writing is sometimes uneven, as she attempts to maintain an  antiquated fairy-tale narration but includes some modern  phrases. While some of her rewrites take the obvious route (the  above-mentioned shoe fetishism of "Cinderella"), each story  contains some surprising new aspects, and none seems clich d or  unoriginal. The results, in fact, are sexy and often quite  humorous Rapunzel, for example, becomes a "rapstress," enticing  a horseman with her rhymes. The tales chosen by Szereto, who has  published four volumes of erotica under the pen name M.S.  Valentine, are quite diverse, and she includes an  introduction explaining the origin  and history of each. Enthusiastically recommended. Amanda Glasbrenner,  "Library Journal"Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.