Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées 8. II. La veine orientale (1704-1789). 1. Les orientalistes, and: Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées 13. III. Le retour du conte de fées (1715-1775). 2. Les conteuses du XVIIIe siècle, and: Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées 16. IV. Contes parodiques et licencieux (1730-1754), and: Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées 17. IV. Contes parodiques et licencieux (1730-1754), and: Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées 18. IV. Contes parodiques et licencieux (1730-1754) (review)
- Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées 8. II. La veine orientale (1704-1789). 1. Les orientalistes, and: Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées 13. III. Le retour du conte de fées (1715-1775). 2. Les conteuses du XVIIIe siècle, and: Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées 16. IV. Contes parodiques et licencieux (1730-1754), and: Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées 17. IV. Contes parodiques et licencieux (1730-1754), and: Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées 18. IV. Contes parodiques et licencieux (1730-1754)
These five volumes constitute an invaluable collection of eighteenth-century tales that otherwise would have been forgotten, many of them having [End Page 159]been published only once. Together they represent a cohesive example of how the fairy-tale genre developed in the eighteenth century, and they should launch new research interests. The editors, in agreement with the collections "Sources classiques," went to great lengths to reproduce texts as they appeared in their original editions, with as few modifications in punctuation, capital letters, and italics as possible. However, the spelling and, in some volumes, the punctuation and the codification of dialogues have been modernized, which can present a loss for the scholarly reader. At the end of each volume one will find a helpful outline of the tales, an index of characters, a table of illustrations, and the table of contents. One might regret that the editor of the collection did not add a general table of contents for the entire collection into each volume. Since the rationale for this collection is explained only in the first volume, it is difficult to have an overview of the collection and of the vogue of fairy tales it illustrates from an examination of individual volumes in the series. Still, the priceless amount of research and the collection of original texts reproduced here demonstrate the recent change of mentality toward the importance of non-canonical literature for a better understanding of French early modern culture as a whole.
La veine orientale (1704-1789). Vol. 8.
This volume is really three texts under one cover, united by a theme. Since each text has a unique editor, the three texts are presented differently. However, the...
