Muller's WORLD FAIRY TALE COLLECTIONS Series: An Alternative to the Oxford Myths & Legends Series - Muller's Folk & Fairy Tales

The Oxford Myths & Legends series from the 1960s is (rightfully and deservedly) recommended by the authors of the Well-Trained Mind (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.

1. African Fairy Tales - Kathleen Arnott
2. Arabian Fairy Tales - Amina Shah
3. Burmese and Thai Fairy Tales - Eleanor Brockett
4. Celtic Fairy Tales - Joseph Jacobs, ed. by Lucia Turnbull 
5. Chinese Fairy Tales - Leslie Bonnet 
6. Danish Fairy Tales - Inge Hack 
7. English Fairy Tales - Joseph Jacobs
8. Fairy Tales from the Barbary Coast - Peter Lum
9. Fairy Tales from Bohemia - Maurice and Pamela Michael 
10. Fairy Tales from the Pacific Islands - A.W. Reed
11. Fairy Tales from Sweden - Irma Kaplan - Carol Calder 
12. Fairy Tales from Switzerland - Roger Duvoisin - originally published as The Three Sneezes and Other Swiss Tales 
13. Folk Tales from North America - Peter Lum
14. French Fairy Tales - Roland Gant - Patricia Morriss 
15. German Fairy Tales - Maurice and Pamela Michael 
16. Greek Fairy Tales - Barbara Ker Wilson  
17. Heroes of Kalevala - Irma Kaplan
18. Indian Fairy Tales - Lucia Turnbull
19. Indonesian Fairy Tales - Adele de Leeuw
20. Italian Fairy Tales - Peter Lum 
21. Japanese Fairy Tales - Juliet Piggott
22. Mexican Fairy Tales - Juliet Piggott
23. Norwegian Fairy Tales - Gert Stringberg 
24. Persian Fairy Tales - Eleanor Brockett 
25. Polish Fairy Tales - Zoë Zajdler 
26. Portuguese Fairy Tales - Maurice and Pamela Michael 
27. Russian Fairy Tales - E. M. Almedingen
28. The Sea-King's Gift and Other Tales from Finland - Zacharius Topelius, retold by Irma Kaplan 
29. South American Fairy Tales - John Meehan
30. Spanish Fairy Tales - John Marks 
31. Turkish Fairy Tales - Eleanor Brockett

Plus:

1. Famous Fairy Tales of the World (a selection from the series) - Juliet Piggott
2. Myth and Moonshine (a collection of magical tales) - Juliet Piggott
3. Old European Fairy Tales - Irma Kaplan

Originally published Aug. 18, 2011.