The Blue Fairy Book

What It's About

The Blue Fairy Book (1889) was the first in Andrew Lang's twelve-volume series of "coloured" Fairy Books. It gathers thirty-seven fairy tales drawn from a wide range of sources — French, German, Norwegian folklore, and adaptations from the Arabian Nights. Familiar stories such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, and Beauty and the Beast sit alongside lesser-known tales, making this one of the most influential fairy tale anthologies ever assembled for English-speaking readers.

Key Concepts

The collection reflects a Victorian effort to gather and standardise European folklore for children, often smoothing over the darker or more violent elements found in earlier oral and literary versions. Recurring motifs include magical transformation, cleverness triumphing over strength, and virtue rewarded — hallmarks of the fairy tale tradition Lang set out to showcase.

About the Author

Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, and literary critic, born in Selkirk and educated at St Andrews and Balliol College, Oxford. A remarkably prolific man of letters, he wrote across poetry, fiction, journalism, and anthropology, but is remembered today chiefly for his fairy tale collections. Although credited as sole author and editor of the Fairy Books, much of the translation and adaptation work was in fact carried out by his wife, Leonora Blanche Lang, and other collaborators — a division of labour for which Lang has since drawn some criticism.