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Marvels & Tales 20.1 (2006) 7-8



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From the Editors

With this issue, Marvels & Tales begins its twentieth year of publication. When founding editor Jacques Barchilon published the journal's inaugural issue in May 1987, he declared confidently that Marvels & Tales was not "just another little magazine, but the beginning of a long-lived review." Two decades later his prediction holds true, for his ambitious initiative continues to bear fruit. Marvels & Tales—better known in its early years as Merveilles et contes—immediately found an international and multidisciplinary audience. Responding to the burgeoning interest in fairy tales that had taken hold in the 1970s and 1980s, Marvels & Tales offered scholars from around the world a unique forum in which to explore the fairy tale as it manifested itself in oral tradition, literature, children's culture, art and illustration, film, and other forms. In short order, Marvels & Tales became what its founding editor had envisioned: a central forum for contemporary fairy-tale studies, a place where both new and established scholars from diverse disciplines could share their research across disciplinary boundaries and contribute to the cross-disciplinary conversation that the emerging field of fairy-tale studies required.

Yet the vision was even broader. In the earliest issues, the editor emphasized his efforts to make the journal "distinctive." And distinctive it was. Every issue invited innovation and resisted the stereotype of the staid professional journal. In addition to the usual scholarly articles, Marvels & Tales included interesting primary texts, facsimile reprints of historically important tales, original creative works by well-known authors, illustrations, artwork, and other visual enhancements. The first editorial board included not only the respected scholars Bengt Holbek, Francesca Sautman, Ester Zago, and Jack Zipes but also the remarkable creative writer Angela Carter. This was no cookie-cutter periodical, but a far-sighted project that invited diverse voices, [End Page 7] encouraged border crossings, and opened fairy-tale studies to unfamiliar perspectives and new collaborations.

The current editors marvel at the achievement of Jacques Barchilon and have been honored to carry on his work. In the ten volumes of Marvels & Tales edited and published at Wayne State University since 1997, we have tried to build on his accomplishments during the journal's first ten years. It is fitting that we hear from him on this page in the remarks that follow below.

The Editors


Born out of a certain passion for the fairy tale, the first issue of Marvels & Tales appeared in the spring of 1987. Since that modest beginning our journal has gone a long way to this present issue twenty years later. A small grant from the University of Colorado College of Arts and Sciences plus the multilingual expertise of our computer collaborator, Sandy Adler, enabled us to publish the first ten years of Marvels & Tales. We recall with pride five special issues. The first, "Beauty and the Beast," in May 1989 (Vol. 3, No. 1; editor: Jacques Barchilon), was followed by a special issue on "The Romantic Tale" in December 1990 (Vol. 4, No. 2; guest editor: Juliette Frølich). In December 1991 a special issue on Charles Perrault (Vol. 5, No. 2; guest editor: Catherine Velay-Vallantin) appeared, while in December 1992 (Vol. 6, No. 2) Veronika Gôrôg-Karady was guest editor for a special issue on "Interpreting Folktales: Marriage Tests and Marriage Quests in African Oral Literature." Our last special issue, "The Italian Tale" (Vol. 7, No. 1), in May 1993, was edited by Giuseppe C. Di Scipio. We could add much more. Suffice it to say that following my retirement it was on the scholarly strength of our first ten years that Wayne State University Press and my esteemed colleague Donald Haase decided to continue editing—with distinction—Marvels & Tales for ten more volumes and years. With this anniversary volume we will have published forty issues. To obtain information on diskette copies of volumes 1–10 of Marvels & Tales, please contact Sandy Adler at adlers@csd.net.

Jacques Barchilon
Founding Editor


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