Perrault, Madame
d'Aulnois, and Grimm have thus been laid under contribution. Where it
was not possible to get at the original of a tale, its various
versions have been collated, compared, and combined; and in some
instances, when this proved still unsatisfactory, the whole story has
been written afresh. The few English fairy tales extant, such as _Jack
the Giant Killer, Tom Thumb_, etc., whose authorship is lost in
obscurity, but whose charming Saxon simplicity of style, and intense
realism of narration, make for them an ever-green immortality--these
have been left intact, for no later touch would improve them. All
modern stories have been excluded.
Of course, in fairy tales, instruction is not expected; we find in
them only the rude moral of virtue rewarded and vice punished. But
children will soon discover for themselves that in real life all
beautiful people are not good, nor all ugly ones wicked; that every
elder sister is not ungenerous, nor every stepmother cruel. And the
tender baby-heart is often reached quite as soon by the fancy as by
the reason. Nevertheless, without any direct appeal to conscience or
morality, the Editor of this collection has been especially careful
that there should be nothing in it which could really harm a child.
She trusts that, whatever its defects, the Fairy Book will not deserve
one criticism, almost the sharpest that can be given to any
work--"that it would have been better if the author had taken more
pains.
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