Wonder Tales

Marina Warner introduces this collection of six seventeenth-century French fairy tales with an explanation of how the literary form was invented by French aristocrats during the reign of Louis XIV. Gilbert Adair, John Ashbery, Ranjit Bolt, A. S. Byatt and Terence Cave have written elegant transalations of “The White Cat”, “The Subtle Princess”, “Bearskin”, “The Counterfeit Marquis”, “Starlight” and “The Great Green Worm."