The Red Fairy Book

What It's About

The Red Fairy Book (1890) is part of Andrew Lang's series of fairy tale anthologies. It gathers stories from a wide range of European traditions - French, German, Scandinavian, Russian, and more - bringing together well-known tales such as "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" and "The Snow Queen" alongside many lesser-known stories drawn from folklore and earlier literary sources.

Key Concepts

As with the other Fairy Books, common threads run through the tales: enchantment and transformation, quests and trials, clever underdogs outwitting the powerful, and virtue eventually rewarded. The stories reflect the folk traditions of the countries they were drawn from, giving the collection a broader and sometimes darker flavour than a single national fairy tale tradition would offer.

About the Author

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a Scottish writer, poet, and folklorist. Educated at St Andrews and Balliol College, Oxford, he became a prolific man of letters, working as a journalist, critic, and scholar with a particular interest in mythology, anthropology, and the collection of folk and fairy tales from around the world.