Title: National dreams
Description: "Fairy tales and folktales have long been mainstays of children's literature, celebrated as imaginatively liberating, psychologically therapeutic, and mirrors of foreign culture. Focusing on the fairy tale in nineteenth-century England, where many collections found their largest readership, National Dreams examines influential but critically neglected early experiments in the presentation of international tale traditions to English readers.

Jennifer Schacker looks at such wondrous story collections as the Grimms' fairy tales and The Arabian Nights in order to trace the larger stories of cross-cultural encounter in which these books were originally embedded. Examining aspects of publishing history alongside her critical readings of tale collections' introductions, annotations, story texts, and illustrations, Schacker reveals the surprising ways in which fairy tales shaped and were shaped by their readers.".

"Schacker shows how the folklore of foreign lands became popular reading material for a broad English audience, historicizing assumed connections between traditional narrative and children's reading. The tales imported and presented by such British writers as Edgar Taylor, T. Crofton Croker, Edward Lane, and George Webbe Dasent were intended to stimulate readers' imaginations.

Fairytale collections provided flights of fancy but also opportunities for reflection on the modern self, on the transformation of popular culture, and on the nature of "Englishness." Schacker demonstrates that such critical reflections were not incidental to the popularity of foreign tales but central to their magical hold on the English imagination."--BOOK JACKET.
Subjects: Adaptations, Books and reading, Children's stories, English, English Fantasy fiction, English fiction, Fairy tales, Fairy tales in literature, History, History and criticism, Popular literature, Books and reading, history, Children's stories, English fiction, history and criticism, 19th century, Fairy tales, history and criticism, Fantasy fiction, history and criticism, Popular literature, history and criticism
Places: England
Time periods: 19th century