(more on OM&L in a future post), but if you need an alternate or addition to any of those books, there's another series I've recently come across, also from the 1960s, that seems like it was a fairly equivalent competitor to what Oxford/Walck were doing: Frederick Muller's World Fairy Tales Collections series of books, sometimes called Muller's Folk and Fairy Tales series. Some were published in the United States by Follett, out of the Midwest. The Muller books don't have color illustrations like the Oxford, it's all black-and-white line drawings, usually by Harry and/or Ilse Toothill, but the text is good stuff. The dustjackets are usually illustrated in the style of the region in question, almost always by someone other than Toothill.Update, Oct. 16, 2011: Was just thrilled to find this recommendation of the Muller fairy tale series in Dorothy Butler's Five to Eight, London: Bodley Head, 1986. She writes, "A series published some years ago by Muller entitled 'Folk and Fairy Tales' provides a rich harvest of stories from almost every country in the world, suitable in language and level for children of seven and over. Sadly out of print, it is still well represented in good libraries. (Turkish Fairy Tales is at this moment providing visiting grandchildren with a source of good stories in my house, and I am impressed all over again with the standard of both content and presentation in these fine collections.)"
Update, April 9, 2012: Laid hands on my very own copy of a 1973 printing of Turkish Fairy Tales and added several more titles from the series, as listed on the back flap of the book.
WORLD FAIRY TALE COLLECTIONS
Follett Publishing Company * Frederick Muller Ltd.
Follett Publishing Company * Frederick Muller Ltd.
- African Fairy Tales - Kathleen Arnott
- Arabian Fairy Tales - Amina Shah
- Burmese and Thai Fairy Tales - Eleanor Brockett
- Celtic Fairy Tales - Joseph Jacobs, ed. by Lucia Turnbull
- Chinese Fairy Tales - Leslie Bonnet
- Danish Fairy Tales - Inge Hack
- English Fairy Tales - Joseph Jacobs
- Fairy Tales from the Barbary Coast - Peter Lum
- Fairy Tales from Bohemia - Maurice and Pamela Michael
- Fairy Tales from the Pacific Islands - A.W. Reed
- Fairy Tales from Sweden - Irma Kaplan - Carol Calder
- Fairy Tales from Switzerland - Roger Duvoisin - originally published as The Three Sneezes and Other Swiss Tales
- Folk Tales from North America - Peter Lum
- French Fairy Tales - Roland Gant - Patricia Morriss
- German Fairy Tales - Maurice and Pamela Michael
- Greek Fairy Tales - Barbara Ker Wilson
- Heroes of Kalevala - Irma Kaplan
- Indian Fairy Tales - Lucia Turnbull
- Indonesian Fairy Tales - Adele de Leeuw
- Italian Fairy Tales - Peter Lum
- Japanese Fairy Tales - Juliet Piggott
- Mexican Fairy Tales - Juliet Piggott
- Norwegian Fairy Tales - Gert Stringberg
- Persian Fairy Tales - Eleanor Brockett
- Polish Fairy Tales - Zoë Zajdler
- Portuguese Fairy Tales - Maurice and Pamela Michael
- Russian Fairy Tales - E. M. Almedingen
- The Sea-King's Gift and Other Tales from Finland - Zacharius Topelius, retold by Irma Kaplan
- South American Fairy Tales - John Meehan
- Spanish Fairy Tales - John Marks
- Turkish Fairy Tales - Eleanor Brockett
Plus:
- Famous Fairy Tales of the World (a selection from the series) - Juliet Piggott
- Myth and Moonshine (a collection of magical tales) - Juliet Piggott
- Old European Fairy Tales - Irma Kaplan
Originally published Aug. 18, 2011.
Just to let you know there is another book in the series-The Rusty Knight and Other Tales from Germany by Richard Volkmann-Leander. Translated b Susanne Flatauer-1974. Loviatar
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this series was at my elementary school. I have memories of a series of books of fairy tales from different countries, and I checked out quite a few of them and have been searching for them. They were older and plain looking books. One had a story of a plain princess who was sent away to lie with a poor woman for "thrice three months" and she did a bunch of chores during her time there and after each selfless accomplishment, she became more beautiful. That's the story I remember the most...and there was an Asian one about a baby boy being found in a peach. I feel like they must've been part of a collection because they were all together and had a similar look about them. Do you have any idea about what the series may be?
ReplyDeleteThe first I beleieve is 'The Plain Princess' by Phyllis McGinley (she also wrote 'The Year Without a Santa Claus'). I don't think it was part of any series. The other story sounds like the Japanese fairy tale 'Momotaro'or 'Little Peachling' which is quite common in many collections-Favorite Fairy Tales Told in Japan (Virginia haviland), The Japanese Fairy Book (Yei Theodora Ozaki), Stories from Japan (Edward & Marguerite Dolch) & Little Peachling and Other Tales of Old Japan (Georgene Faulkner the Story Lady), Oxford's Japanese Tales & Legends/Tales from Japan (Helen & William McAlpine) and probably the Piggott collection. The Dolch's put out a series of folktale readers for schools , maybe that's the series you remember? Anyways, hope this helps.
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