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Rating: 
Summary: An excellent reference tool
Review: This book should be in all moderately sized reference libraries and larger. With a focus on the European Fairy Tale tradition, this volume includes entries on authors, illustrators, playrights, critical movements, collectors, films, and countless others related to the fairy tale genre. The entries are well-researched and many are enhanced with rarely reproduced illustrations. The book makes a great reference tool, but also serves as a candy dish full of information about your favorite fairy tales. While some expected entries are missing, this is still the best reference volume in the field. It is highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent reference tool
Review: This book should be in all moderately sized reference libraries and larger. With a focus on the European Fairy Tale tradition, this volume includes entries on authors, illustrators, playrights, critical movements, collectors, films, and countless others related to the fairy tale genre. The entries are well-researched and many are enhanced with rarely reproduced illustrations. The book makes a great reference tool, but also serves as a candy dish full of information about your favorite fairy tales. While some expected entries are missing, this is still the best reference volume in the field. It is highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding guide to fairy tales, old and new
Review: This delightful, informative book will give great enjoyment to anyone who loves fairy tales. You'll find an in-depth entry on just about any fairy tale, old or new, you can think of. Among the profiles of authors, I was pleased to find excellent write-ups on three of my favorites, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Diana Wynne Jones. Other writers from the past covered here include E. Nesbit, Hans Christian Andersen, Oscar Wilde, A.A. Milne, George MacDonald, Beatrix Potter and L. Frank Baum; others from the present include Robin McKinley, Lloyd Alexander, Vivian Vande Velde, Terry Pratchett, Astrid Lindgren and Patricia C. Wrede.There are also entries on composers, opera, operetta, ballet, illustrators, film, television and science fiction. Generously scattered throughout are full-page (and smaller) illustrations by artists such as Gustav Dore, Kay Nielsen, Walter Crane, W.W. Denslow and Arthur Rackham. And special sections trace in detail the development of fairy tales in various countries. This well-written, well-edited guide is a must for anyone with an interest in fairy tales.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent imperfect resource for Western literary fairy tale
Review: This is an excellent first edition of a resource book which has carefully limited its scope "Western", "literary" "fairy tale". Imagine my amusement, however, that I picked up at the same time as this volume The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse tranlated by Jack Zipes - and there is no entry for Hesse in the Companion. This volume is especially strong. however, in that it recognizes the contributions of composers, artists and film directors and their work to the fairy tale tradition. The entries are fascinating and do not require any expertise in the field. Items are indexed in a manner that it is easy to find what you are looking for - "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is under "Snow White" - that may seem self-evident but with the number of varients of fairy tales that is not always so simple. There are longer articles on the various regions and the general flavor and history of fairy tales in the region. These provide a broad overview that is most useful. Opening at random to give a flavor of the entries: Charles Kingsley for his The Water-Babies; Rudyard Kipling for Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies; Sarah Kirsch for her retelling of Grimm tales in prose and poetry; Kismet the musical; Edward Knatchbull-Hugessen author of 15 children's books; Janusz Korczah for a recent utopian fairy-tale novel. This book is a significant contribution. I should hope for a second edition to close some of the holes. [Of course, I'd like a similar volume for the rest of the world AND a volume for animal fables ...]
Rating:
Summary: Excellent imperfect resource for Western literary fairy tale
Review: This is an excellent first edition of a resource book which has carefully limited its scope "Western", "literary" "fairy tale". Imagine my amusement, however, that I picked up at the same time as this volume The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse tranlated by Jack Zipes - and there is no entry for Hesse in the Companion. This volume is especially strong. however, in that it recognizes the contributions of composers, artists and film directors and their work to the fairy tale tradition. The entries are fascinating and do not require any expertise in the field. Items are indexed in a manner that it is easy to find what you are looking for - "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is under "Snow White" - that may seem self-evident but with the number of varients of fairy tales that is not always so simple. There are longer articles on the various regions and the general flavor and history of fairy tales in the region. These provide a broad overview that is most useful. Opening at random to give a flavor of the entries: Charles Kingsley for his The Water-Babies; Rudyard Kipling for Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies; Sarah Kirsch for her retelling of Grimm tales in prose and poetry; Kismet the musical; Edward Knatchbull-Hugessen author of 15 children's books; Janusz Korczah for a recent utopian fairy-tale novel. This book is a significant contribution. I should hope for a second edition to close some of the holes. [Of course, I'd like a similar volume for the rest of the world AND a volume for animal fables ...]
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