User blog:NibiruMul/Forgotten fairy tale collection reviews, part 2

It's been a while since I've did one of these, so I figured I'll do another one today. This is a collection from the same website where I found the first one last month. This collection is called A Child's Book of Stories. It was written in 1911 by Penrhyn W. Coussens. The story contains a lot of the familiar stories to pre-World War I collections. The book was out of print for a long time, but the website appears to be offering a new edition.

Let's look at some of the familiar stories first. One of the first stories in the collection is Little Red Riding Hood. Unlike the previous collection, this one appears to be the Brothers Grimm version, complete with happy ending. The wording seems to be the same exact wording as another collection I found from the 1950s that was at my old day program. (Maybe the second book used this version?) I noticed that once the 20th century rolled around, the Brothers Grimm version seems to have replaced the Perrault version in the public conscious.

Now here's their Sleeping Beauty. This one is definitely an improvement on the Sleeping Beauty from the previous collection, since it's the long, unabridged version of Perrault's story, complete with the second part with the ogress. The wording isn't too different from the one used in Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book. (Several other stories, such as The Yellow Dwarf, appear to be taken from Andrew Lang's versions.)

The collection ends with Snow White, here under the old title Snowdrop. The story is mostly faithful to the Grimms' version except for the ending, which gives a lighter, less sadistic death for the queen. In this one, she simply dies of rage without having to wear red hot iron shoes. Ironically, this is one alteration that I don't particularly mind since I admit, I do find the original ending kinda sadistic. In case you're curious, Wikipedia gives a list of alternate fates for the queen, some fatal, some not.

This is one old collection that makes use of Hans Christian Andersen. Here is a retelling of The Steadfast Tin Soldier, complete with the original, tragic ending. The Ugly Duckling is present here too. The story makes use of several of Aesop's Fables, such as The Boy Who Cried Wolf. In this version, only the sheep get eaten - the boy lives. Contrary to popular belief, in the original the boy doesn't get eaten. It wasn't until later that versions where the boy gets eaten started appearing.'

A few stories are shortened from their originals. Here is what is probably the most truncated version of The White Doe I've seen yet. It's only a few hundred words, while the original clocks in at nearly 13,000 words. A lot of the characters and action is missing. Such a shame.

What I find interesting is that a few stories appear to be of Native American origin, such as The Fox and the Rabbit. This collection was published in the United States. Andrew Lang made use of several Native American stories too, particularly in the Brown and Orange Fairy Books.

There are also some stories that I can't find anywhere else. Here's a rather funny one called Tired of Being a Little Girl. It's about a little girl who tires of being a little girl. First, she wants to be a rosebud, but then a fairy tries to pick her. Then she wants to be a bird, but then an elf tries to feed her a worm. She decides that she'd rather be a little girl. There's also another one called The Foolhardy Frogs and the Stork, which is about frogs finding a way to evade a stork who wants to eat them.

There are a few stinkers, but not many. The Babes in the Wood, my absolute least favorite fairy tale, was present. A few other stories were kinda corny.

But overall, this was a good collection - definitely an improvement over the last one. One thing I like about it is that this one seems a bit more modern than the previous collection, which is so blatantly Victorian. All in all, a good collection, and definitely worth reading.

Here is the table of contents.