Honors 211: Fairy Tales

In over 1,000 entries, this acclaimed Companion covers all aspects of the Western fairy tale tradition, from medieval to modern, under the guidance of Professor Jack Zipes. It provides an authoritative reference source for this complex and captivating genre, exploring the tales themselves, the writers who wrote and reworked them, and the artists who illustrated them. It also covers numerous related topics such as the fairy tale and film, television, art, opera, ballet, the oral tradition, music, advertising, cartoons, fantasy literature, feminism, and stamps. First published in 2000, 130 new entries have been added to account for recent developments in the field, including J.K. Rowling and Suzanne Collins, and new articles on topics such as cognitive criticism and fairy tales, digital fairy tales, fairy tale blogs and websites, and pornography and fairy tales.

Spanning ten centuries, this guided tour will enthrall anyone who has ever believed or even half-believed in supernatural creatures. In recent years, there has been an astonishing growth of interest in fairy tales and the magic world they represent. For adults as well as children, fairy tales have had the same appeal - and created many of the same worlds - as modern science fiction. From the Tolkien fans to the readers of Pantheon's Grimm's Fairy Tales or the Opies' book of classical fairy tales, to the serious university students of folklore and authors like Bruno Bettelheim, we see an increasing fascination with this mythological world. As a reference work, An Encyclopedia of Fairies is the first and only one of its kind.

Fairies have been revered and feared, sometimes simultaneously, throughout recorded history. This encyclopedia of concise entries, from the Greek nymph Aba to the shy Zips of Central America and Mexico, includes more than 2,500 individual beings and species of fairy and nature spirits from a wide range of mythologies and religions from all over the globe.