In the end I decided on two themes: fairy tales and modernism. They seem very different from each other but who knows, some interesting connexions might come out of them. Crucially, I already have a lot of books which would fit into both these themes. The gallimaufry coffers are bare at present so officially I am not buying any books until the end of the year (but unofficially a few have crept in through the back door while another member of the household was weeding the beans). The fairytale theme has the added bonus of allowing me to delude myself that most of the book purchases are for my little daughter and not for me and thus unselfish acts which are always more justifiable in times of lean economy.
I am really excited about both of these and have decided to make some lists because that is what I like to do when I start a new project, a nice clean shiny list all bristling with good intentions and ready for neat ticks, visible signs of Progress and Achievement.
(Kay Nielsen, ‘And then she lay on a little green patch in the midst of the gloomy thick wood’, illustration from East of the Sun, West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North (1914); the whole book is available at Project Gutenberg)
I started to compile a provisional fairytale list below, but need help. I have divided into books I have and books I don’t have, which is significant only in so far as the books I have will be read first. This means that I’ll be reading almost all the ‘echte’ fairy tales after the secondary works, which is not how I prefer to do these things but never mind. I did spend a large part of my childhood reading and rereading fairy tales after all. In fact, I have a number of my childhood collections of fairy tales here, but according to Bruno Bettelheim, whom I’ve already begun reading, these are probably bowdlerised and I should acquaint myself with the originals (actually I have a problem with some of his pronouncements in this area but I’ll write about that in another post). I might reread them anyway, sorry Bruno. I'll certainly post some of the exquisite illustrations.
These are the books I already own (not including the children’s books):
W.H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, West African Folk Tales
Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment
Lewis Carroll, The Story of Sylvie and Bruno (does this count?!)
Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber
Angela Carter, The Virago Book of Fairy Tales and The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales
N.J. Dawood (ed.) The Thousand and One Nights
Rodney Engen, The Age of Enchantment (it’s an exhibition catalogue which I haven’t yet read properly; now’s as good a time as any)
George Macdonald, The Complete Fairy Tales
Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde (I have to read this sharpish as I ‘borrowed’ it from my mother)
Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson, The Lore of the Land
These are the books I was hoping to buy and read when wallowing in wealth:
Katharine Briggs, The Vanishing People
Marie-Louise von Franz, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales
James Frazer, The Golden Bough
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, The Complete Fairy Tales (Vintage edition) but Selected Tales (Oxford University Press edition) seems to have good reviews, should I read both?
Charles Perrault, The Complete Fairy Tales (Oxford University Press edition)
Murray B. Peppard, Paths Through the Forest (a biography of the Brothers Grimm, but is the one by Jack Zipes better?)
Elizabeth Wanning-Harries, Twice Upon a Time
Adolf Wenig, Bohemian Folk Tales
And maybe these? Although I don’t know much about them...
R.M. Dorson, Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction
Alan Dundes (ed.), The Study of Folklore
Max Lüthi, The Fairy Tale as Art Form and Portrait of Man
Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales
Stith Thompson, The Folktale
Could anyone recommend other books to add? (Or subtract!) Jack Zipes has written a great deal – where is a good place to start with his work? I’m not sure where to find fairy tales beyond the Grimms, Andersen and Perrault, could anyone make any recommendations? I’m particularly interested at the moment in British and Irish fairy tales, Eastern European and Russian fairy tales and Japanese fairy tales, but I'd love to know about others too. I'd also like to read about different ways of interpreting fairy tales, their origins and how they were collected, and how they might once have been told rather than read.
I am going to tag anything I write about in this theme as 'Into the woods', I don't care if it's fey.
And would anyone be interested in joining in or doing something similar? It would probably have to be in a loose sort of way, I can't promise to stick to the list nor to read in a certain time frame so nor should you, but it would be fun to compare notes and swap recommendations.
(Kay Nielsen, ‘Rapunzel’, in Hansel and Gretel and Other Stories by the Brothers Grimm (1925); from here)
Provisional modernism book list to follow...