Marvelous Transformations: An Anthology of Fairy Tales and Contemporary Critical Perspectives

Marvelous Transformations is an innovative anthology of fairy tales and related criticism that reflects current, interdisciplinary scholarship on oral traditions and the cultural history of the fairy tale. Tales range chronologically from ancient Egypt to the twenty-first century. A collection of modern and postmodern tales from authors such as Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, and Marina Warner shows the continuing vitality of this ancient genre.

“"Christine Jones and Jennifer Schacker have created an unusual and fascinating anthology dedicated to the study of folklore and fairy tales. Instead of collecting a variety of tales from a particular country or from different parts of the world, they have assembled international texts chronologically from earlier written traditions to contemporary transcriptions and translations. They have also included brief commentaries and essays on important topics. Their aim is to foster an interdisciplinary and historical approach to understanding the complex evolution of a genre, and it is to their great credit that they have produced a most original book that will be useful to readers who seek to grasp the mysterious changes that fairy tales have undergone ever since once upon a time."”

Christine Jones and Jennifer Schacker have created an unusual and fascinating anthology dedicated to the study of folklore and fairy tales. Instead of collecting a variety of tales from a particular country or from different parts of the world, they have assembled international texts chronologically, from earlier written traditions to contemporary transcriptions and translations. They have also included brief commentaries and essays on important topics. Their aim is to foster an interdisciplinary and historical approach to understanding the complex evolution of a genre, and it is to their great credit that they have produced a most original book that will be useful to readers who seek to grasp the mysterious changes that fairy tales have undergone ever since once upon a time." - Jack Zipes, Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota

"We may think we know what fairy tales are and what they mean, but the stories and critical essays collected by Christine Jones and Jennifer Schacker succeed in making the seemingly familiar decidedly unfamiliar. Marvelous Transformations invites readers to discover fairy tales both well known and neglected and, at the end of the volume, a series of short essays that bring together the best of current literary and folkloric approaches to the genre. Students, teachers, scholars-indeed, all readers interested in fairy tales-have much to learn from this volume." - Lewis Seifert, Brown University

"This volume's strength lies in both its range of primary source stories and the span of secondary criticism included. With their selection of texts, Jones and Schacker have also attempted to situate fairy tale studies in a broader interdisciplinary context that emphasizes the relationship between literary history and folklore history, particularly field-based oral storytelling." -Johanna Denzin, Columbia College

Christine A. Jones is Associate Professor of French at the University of Utah. She is the author of Shapely Bodies: The Image of Porcelain in Eighteenth-Century France (University of Delaware Press, 2012) and is currently completing annotated translations of Charles Perrault's fairy tales.

Jennifer Schacker is Associate Professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. She is the author of National Dreams: The Remaking of Fairy Tales in Nineteenth-Century England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), winner of the 2006 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award.

Marvelous Transformationsis an anthology of tales and original critical essays that moves beyond canonized "classics" and old paradigms, documenting the points of historical connection between literary tales and field-based collections. This innovative anthology reflects current interdisciplinary scholarship on oral traditions and the cultural history of the print fairy tale. In addition to the tales, original critical essays, newly written for this volume, introduce readers to differing perspectives on key ideas in the field.

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