From Library Journal\nFollowing recent emphasis on the Grimms' editorial interventions in successive editions of the Tales, Bottigheimer argues convincingly that one consequence of a shaping hand was to convey, covertly and cumulatively, a fundamental and profound gender bias. The Grimms' (chiefly Wilhelm's) editing tended to inhibit women's speech, to punish them disproportionately for transgressions, to isolate them, and to reduce their autonomy. Through close reading and linguistic and sociohistorical analyses, the author also investigates anti-Semitism, economics, Christian values, and eroticism in the Tales. Her study effectively corrects such influential interpretations as Bettelheim's by insisting on the Tales' cultural specificity. Extensive primary and secondary bibliographies. Patricia Dooley, formerly with English Dept., Drexel Univ., Philadelphia 
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Grimms' bad girls & bold boys: The moral & social vision of the Tales

Literature & Fiction

Bottigheimer, Ruth B.

History & Criticism

Yale University Press

The fairy tale collection of the brothers Grimm has been a central document in German social and literary history for generations, mined for various purposes by scholars of many persuasions. This book, the first in more than fifty years to examine the entire body of tales, provides a thorough content analysis, focusing in particular on the use of gender in the stories. Ruth B. Bottigheimer’s close analysis of several major editions of Grimms’ Tales reveals coherent patterns of motif, plot, and image and also affords insight into the moral and social vision of the collection. Bottigheimer discusses, for example, the relationship between transgression and punishment, noting that gender distinctions rather than the severity of the sin determined the consequences of transgressing prohibitions. She finds that in the course of the Tales’ editorial history, speech was systematically taken away from women and given to men. She shows how common elements unite images and themes as disparate as abandonment in the forest, subliminal eroticism, violence, and Christianity in the Tales. And she treats their social and ethical bases, analyzing such aspects of the plots as the workings of the judicial process and the relation of anti-Semitism to the economics of work and money. According to Bottigheimer, Freudians praise fairy tales as contributing to children’s moral education; although Jungians recognize the gender distinctions inherent in the tales, they treat the collection ahistorically, ignoring its nineteenth-century German origins. By combining a sociohistorical analysis of these stories with close scrutiny of the language in which they are told, Bottigheimer radically alters the uses to which Grimms’ Tales can be put in the future by historians, psychologists, feminists, and educators.

Grimms` Bad Girls and Bold Boys: The Moral and Social Vision of the Tales

Literary

For more than five centuries, parents, teachers, and preachers in Europe and America have written and illustrated Bibles especially for children. These children's Bibles vary widely, featuring different stories, various interpretations, and markedly divergent illustrations, despite their common source. How children's Bibles differ, and why, is the subject of this groundbreaking book, the first to recognize children's Bibles as a distinct genre with its own literary, historical, and cultural significance. Comparing European and American children's Bibles, Ruth B. Bottigheimer reveals how the cultural standards and social attitudes of adults who tell Bible stories to children affect the selection and interpretation of Old and New Testament stories. She also analyzes many familiar Bible tales―for example, the parting of the Red Sea, the Garden of Eden, and the Crucifixion―to see what they tell us about the Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish societies that presented them to children. Bottigheimer finds that even disparate religious groups transformed Bible stories for their young according to a common pattern: stories initially stayed close to scriptural text, then troubling passages underwent revisions, and finally a thoroughgoing amendment of the story emerged. Numerous engaging illustrations throughout this book underscore the fascinating variety among children's Bibles of different eras and cultures.

The Bible for Children: From the Age of Gutenberg to the Present

History

World

In the classic rags-to-riches fairy tale a penniless heroine (or hero), with some magic help, marries a royal prince (or princess) and rises to wealth. Received opinion has long been that stories like these originated among peasants, who passed them along by word of mouth from one place to another over the course of centuries. In a bold departure from conventional fairy tale scholarship, Ruth B. Bottigheimer asserts that city life and a single individual played a central role in the creation and transmission of many of these familiar tales. According to her, a provincial boy, Zoan Francesco Straparola, went to Venice to seek his fortune and found it by inventing the modern fairy tale, including the long beloved Puss in Boots, and by selling its many versions to the hopeful inhabitants of that colorful and commercially bustling city.
With innovative literary sleuthing, Bottigheimer has reconstructed the actual composition of Straparola's collection of tales. Grounding her work in social history of the Renaissance Venice, Bottigheimer has created a possible biography for Straparola, a man about whom hardly anything is known. This is the first book-length study of Straparola in any language.

Fairy Godfather: Straparola, Venice, and the Fairy Tale Tradition

Reference

University of Pennsylvania Press

Overturns traditional views of the origins of fairy tales and documents their actual origins and transmission. Where did Cinderella come from? Puss in Boots? Rapunzel? The origins of fairy tales are looked at in a new way in these highly engaging pages. Conventional wisdom holds that fairy tales originated in the oral traditions of peasants and were recorded for posterity by the Brothers Grimm during the nineteenth century. Ruth B. Bottigheimer overturns this view in a lively account of the origins of these well-loved stories. Charles Perrault created Cinderella and her fairy godmother, but no countrywoman whispered this tale into Perrault’s ear. Instead, his Cinderella appeared only after he had edited it from the book of often amoral tales published by Giambattista Basile in Naples. Distinguishing fairy tales from folktales and showing the influence of the medieval romance on them, Bottigheimer documents how fairy tales originated as urban writing for urban readers and listeners. Working backward from the Grimms to the earliest known sixteenth-century fairy tales of the Italian Renaissance, Bottigheimer argues for a book-based history of fairy tales. The first new approach to fairy tale history in decades, this book answers questions about where fairy tales came from and how they spread, illuminating a narrative process long veiled by surmise and assumption.

Fairy Tales: A New History

Teen & Young Adult

Excelsior Editions

Overturns traditional views of the origins of fairy tales and documents their actual origins and transmission. Where did Cinderella come from? Puss in Boots? Rapunzel?The origins of fairy tales are looked at in a new way in these highly engaging pages. Conventional wisdom holds that fairy tales originated in the oral traditions of peasants and were recorded for posterity by the Brothers Grimm during the nineteenth century. Ruth B. Bottigheimer overturns this view in a lively account of the origins of these well-loved stories. Charles Perrault created Cinderella and her fairy godmother, but no countrywoman whispered this tale into Perrault’s ear. Instead, his Cinderella appeared only after he had edited it from the book of often amoral tales published by Giambattista Basile in Naples. Distinguishing fairy tales from folktales and showing the influence of the medieval romance on them, Bottigheimer documents how fairy tales originated as urban writing for urban readers and listeners. Working backward from the Grimms to the earliest known sixteenth-century fairy tales of the Italian Renaissance, Bottigheimer argues for a book-based history of fairy tales. The first new approach to fairy tale history in decades, this book answers questions about where fairy tales came from and how they spread, illuminating a narrative process long veiled by surmise and assumption. “Bottingheimer’s work is as always provocative and interesting.” — Journal of American Folklore “The genius of this slender volume is not so much that it provides a totally ‘new history,’ but rather that it presents not only Bottigheimer’s research but also that of John Ellis, Heinz Rölleke, Nancy Canepa, and many others in cogent, persuasive, eminently readable prose … A fascinating study in intertextuality, this book includes a helpful list of the 77 tales discussed, categorized by the author.” — CHOICE “Some scholars say that, whether or not one agrees with all of Bottigheimer’s conclusions, her work is a useful questioning of popularly held beliefs.” — Chronicle Review “This book will forever change the way that scholars and readers view a genre—the literary fairy tale—that remains vital today.” — Suzanne Magnanini, author of Fairy-Tale Science: Monstrous Generation in the Tales of Straparola and Basile

Fairy Tales: A New History (Excelsior Editions)

State University of New York Press

2012 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title  Translations of the forewords and afterwords by original fairy tale authors and commentaries by their contemporaries, material that has not been widely published in English.  Most early fairy tale authors had a lot to say about what they wrote. Charles Perrault explained his sources and recounted friends’ reactions. His niece Marie-Jeanne Lhéritier and her friend Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy used dedications and commentaries to situate their tales socially and culturally, while the raffish Henriette Julie de Murat accused them all of taking their plots from the Italian writer Giovan Francesco Straparola and admitted to borrowing from the Italians herself. These reflections shed a bright light on both the tales and on their composition, but in every case, they were removed soon after their first publication. Remaining largely unknown, their absence created empty space that later readers filled with their own views about the conditions of production and reception of the tales.  What their authors had to say about “Puss in Boots,” “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” and “Rapunzel,” among many other fairy tales, is collected here for the first time, newly translated and accompanied by rich annotations. Also included are revealing commentaries from the authors’ literary contemporaries.  As a whole, these forewords, afterwords, and critical words directly address issues that inform the contemporary study of European fairy tales, including traditional folkloristic concerns about fairy tale origins and performance, as well as questions of literary aesthetics and historical context.  “This combination of introductory information and primary sources makes the book indispensable for serious students of fairy tale literature. Taken as a whole, the essays create a lively picture of the enterprise of fairy tale creation … Highly recommended.” — CHOICE  “There are many multifaceted gems in this collection and they will prove rewarding reading for those working with European fairy tales.” — Maria Tatar, editor of The Classic Fairy Tales: Texts, Criticism  Ruth B. Bottigheimer teaches European fairy tales and British children’s literature at Stony Brook University, State University of New York. She is the author of several books, including Fairy Tales: A New History, also published by SUNY Press, and Fairy Godfather: Straparola, Venice, and the Fairy Tale Tradition.

Fairy Tales Framed: Early Forewords, Afterwords, and Critical Words

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