Fairy Tales Framed: Early Forewords, After-words, and Critical Words ed. by Ruth B. Bottigheimer (review)

It is unusual to find a work of scholarship that represents a true collaboration, yet Fairy Tales Framed appears to be just that. The acknowledgments make just this claim, explaining the method of collaboration among Bottigheimer, Suzanne Magnanini, Nancy Canepa, Betsey Harries, Christine Jones, and Sophie Raynard, and listing the principal author of each section, while pointing out that “each essay expresses the special expertise of its principal author as well as that of the group as a whole” (p. vii). Bottigheimer’s “Address to the Reader” brings to mind the “addresses” fairy tale authors wrote, and describes the scope of the collection: the exploration of the paratexts originally associated with the tales of well-known authors such as Giovan Straparola, Giambattista Basile, Charles Perrault, and Marie- Catherine d’Aulnoy, as well as those of lesser-known writers. The text subtly makes the case for examining prefaces, afterwords, dedications, letters, and commentaries as a means to “illuminate relevant historical, literary, and folkloristic issues” (p. 6), and it presents dialogues about fairy tales in which scholars and teachers will find fodder for discussion and further study and research.

Split into three sections, the text provides an introduction to the “literary model” of fairy tales followed by sections that present texts from Italy and France. Chapters are short, with the longest running less than 30 pages, making them ideal to assign in a classroom setting. Bottigheimer and her collaborators recognize this and repeat important points and footnotes to make it easier for instructors to assign the sections most relevant for their courses. Each chapter provides an introduction to translated material about and by a particular writer, followed by the paratexts themselves.

In “An Introduction to Fairy Tales and the Boccaccian Literary Model,” the authors introduce the volume’s materials, methodology, and goals. They point out that the structure and style of many of the literary fairy tales can be traced back to Boccaccio’s Decameron. Moving into a discussion of The Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, this section draws readers into a historical contextualization of magical tales, and Boccaccio’s “humanist defense” of them as valuable in their messages to “serving girls, children, and old people” (p. 24). Readers familiar with fairy tale studies and history will recognize this defense as one that would be repeated by all manner of critics, scholars, and readers for centuries. This introduction links fairy tales to a long literary and historical tradition, setting the stage for the next two sections.

The section “Fairy Tales in Italy: Early Authors, Theorists, and Critics” provides materials that speak about the early tales of Straparola and Basile. For instance, this section begins with an introduction that sets forth its purpose: “to show us that for hundreds of years those who wrote or theorized about Italian fairy tales . . . wrestled with similar questions and themes” (p. 40). The authors continue: “Indeed, the texts translated here require the construction of a new vision of the fairy tale’s origins and its social-historical role in Italian culture and literature” (p. 40). Some of the highlights include a chapter that examines Salvatore Scarano’s dedication that prefaced Day 1 of Basile’s Tale of Tales, and another that includes a short biography of Basile from Girolamo Brusoni’s The Glories of the Incogniti, Or the Illustrious Men of the Academy of the “Unknown Gentlemen.” The five chapters that conclude the section investigate additional forewords, letters, and commentaries on Basile’s work, thus providing readers with true dialogues about the seminal literary fairy tale texts, conversations which many otherwise may not discover.

Some of the most in-depth exploration of paratexts comes in the third section, “Fairy Tales in France: Establishing the Canon.” In fact, much of the introduction to the section spends time discussing terminology and its fluidity within France at the time Perrault, d’Aulnoy...