"he Thought the Princess Was His Queen" 143 · page 21 2101He was more.102He was the cause of enjoyment to countless of his fellows, and his stories still promise enjoyment to countless others to come.103_104_It is amazing to remember that Perrault was rather ashamed of his "Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé"--perhaps better known as "Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye," or "Mother Goose's Tales," from the rough print which was inserted as a frontispiece to the first collected edition in 1697.105He would not even publish them in his own name.106They were declared to be by P. Darmancour, Perrault's young son.107In order that the secret might be well kept, Perrault abandoned his usual publisher, Coignard, and went to Barbin.108The stories had previously appeared from time to time, anonymously, in Moetjens' little magazine the "Recueil," which was published from The Hague. "109La Belle au Bois Dormant" ("Sleeping Beauty") was the first: and in rapid succession followed "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge" ("Red Riding-Hood"), "Le Maistre Chat, ou le Chat Botté" ("Puss in Boots"), "Les Fées" ("The Fairy"), "Cendrillon, ou la Petite Pantoufle de Verre" ("Cinderella"), "Riquet à la Houppe" ("Riquet of the Tuft"), and "Le Petit Poucet" ("Tom Thumb").110_111_Perrault was not so shy in admitting the authorship of his three verse stories--"Griselidis," "Les Souhaits Ridicules," and "Peau d'Asne."112The first appeared, anonymously it is true, in 1691; but, when it came to be reprinted with "Les Souhaits Ridicules" and "Peau d'Asne" in 1695, they were entrusted to the firm of Coignard and described as being by "Mr Perrault, de l'Academie Françoise."113La Fontaine had made a fashion of this sort of exercise.114_115_It would not be fair to assume that P. Darmancour had no connection whatever with the composition of the stories which bore his name.116The best of Perrault's critics, Paul de St Victor and Andrew Lang among others, see in the book a marvellous collaboration of crabbed age and youth.117The boy, probably, gathered the stories from his nurse and brought them to his father, who touched them up, and toned them down, and wrote them out.118Paul Lacroix, in his fine edition of 1886, goes as far as to attribute the entire authorship of the prose tales to Perrault's son.119He deferred, however, to universal usage when he entitled his volume "Les Contes en prose de Charles Perrault."120_121_"Les Contes du Temps Passé" had an immediate success.122Imitators sprung up at once by the dozen, and still persist; but none of them has ever rivalled, much less surpassed, the inimitable originals.123Every few years a new and sumptuous edition appears in France.124The best are probably those by Paul Lacroix and André le Fèvre.125_126_The stories soon crossed the Channel; and a translation "by Mr Samber, printed for J. Pote" was advertised in the "Monthly Chronicle" of 1729. "127Mr Samber" was presumably one Robert Samber of New Inn, who translated other tales from the French, for Edmond Curl the bookseller, about this time.128No copy of the first edition of his Perrault is known to exist.129Yet it won a wide popularity, as is shown by the fact that there was a seventh edition published in 1795, for J. Rivington, a bookseller, of Pearl Street, New York.130_131_No English translation of Perrault's fairy tales has attained unquestioned literary pre-eminence.132So the publishers of the present book have thought it best to use Samber's translation, which has a special interest of its own in being almost contemporary with the original.133The text has been thoroughly revised and corrected by Mr J. E. Mansion, who has purged it of many errors without detracting from its old-fashioned quality.134To Mr Mansion also is due the credit for the translation of the "Les Souhaits Ridicules" and for the adaptation of "Peau d'Asne." "135Griselidis" is excluded from this book for two good reasons; firstly, because it is an admitted borrowing by Perrault from Boccaccio; secondly, because it is not a 'fairy' tale in the true sense of the word.136_137_It is, perhaps, unnecessary for me to add anything about Mr Clarke's illustrations.138Many of the readers of this book will be already familiar with his work.139Besides, I always feel that it is an impertinence to describe pictures in their presence.140Mr Clarke's speak for themselves.141They speak for Perrault too.142It is seldom, indeed, that an illustrator enters so thoroughly into the spirit of his text.143The grace, delicacy, urbanity, tenderness, and humour which went to the making of Perrault's stories must, it seems, have also gone in somewhat similar proportions to the making of these delightful drawings.144I am sure that they would have given pleasure to Perrault himself.145_1 2← previous"away She Drove, Scarce Able to Contain Herself For Joy" 78next →_thomas Bodkin_, part 1↑ back to The Fairy Tales of Charles PerraultThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg29021/6/page/2/