The tales-116 in all-arethematically grouped. Each grouping is introduced and annotated by JackZipes, the genre’s reigning expert. Twenty illustrations accompany thetexts.

"Criticism" includes seven important assessments of different aspectsof the fairy tale tradition, written by W. G. Waters, Benedetto Croce,Lewis Seifert, Patricia Hannon, Harry Velten, Siegfried Neumann, andJack Zipes.

Brief biographies of the storytellers and a Selected Bibliography areincluded.