Introduction
19th-century Britain was enamored with fairy tales. Folklorists like Andrew Lang, Charles Perrault, and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm sought to collect, translate, and reproduce traditional fairy tales. These fairy tales were enjoyed by academics and the public alike. Fairy tales were often tied with other subjects such as Andrew Lang’s contributions to the emerging field of anthropology and the Grimm brothers’ contributions to linguistics. These scientific ties mean that fairy tales were read by the highly educated for academic reasons. This fairy tale movement intersects several fields both humanistic and scientific: anthropology, linguistics, economics (due to the fairy tales’ market success), history, art, and literature. The interdisciplinary nature of this field presents challenges to its easy classification. As well, the broader public was reading fairy tales as evidenced through market success. Children’s literature would emerge from the fairy tale genre.
Suggested Order
Sources might be explored in the suggested order to scaffold an understanding of 19th-century British fairy tales and folklore. While many more sources are listed throughout, reading the following sources in this order will help to direct one’s research process and gain insight. Gaining this sort of insight can allow for independent exploration of primary sources within this period.
1. Warner, M. (2014). Where do fairy tales come from? BBC Culture. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140930-where-do-fairy-tales-come-from
This article describes the history of fairy tales. It explains the difficulties of defining fairy tales but emphasizes their connection with folktales. A critical vocabulary for distinguishing between two types of fairy tales, those “newly invented” and those coming from an oral tradition, is provided
2. Lam, Siobhan. (2007). Fairy tales: Surviving the evangelical attack. In Victorian Web. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.victorianweb.org/genre/childlit/fairytales1.html
Evangelical writers accused fairy tales for corrupting youth with poor morals, specifically non-English morals. These extended critiques led to the genre’s decline to publication through chapbooks, which are a sort of small book or pamphlet. However, this relegation led to the success of the genre because of how cheap this literature was to purchase. This economic situation allowed fairy tales to flourish in spite of the evangelical attacks. Siobhan’s document provides a history of how these fairy tales evolved and considers the material culture surrounding this evolution.
3. Windling, T. (2013). Queen Victoria’s book of spells, introduction. In Fantasy, magic, & fairyland in 19th century England. Retrieved December 30, 2018, from http://www.terriwindling.com/anthologies/fantasy-magic-fairyland-in-19th-century-england.html
This self-archived work is the introduction of the book Fantasy, Magic, & Fairyland in 19th Century England. In this introduction, Windling notes that England was late to the party when it came to an interest in fairy tales. Italy had already gone through this movement in the 16th century, France in the 17th century, and Germany in the 18th century. Windling argues that religion was the reason for the near-glacial rise of this interest. She describes the cultural influences intertwined with this interest in fairy tales, ranging from Romanticism to spiritualism to the popularity of the arts and crafts movement.
Additional Tips
After reading the above sources, the Victorian Web is a good reference source for further researching any topics of interest that emerge. Perusing the Critical Sources section should also prove helpful as these sources cover a wide range of topics.
The Primary Sources section should be consulted for primary source examples from within the canon of fairy tale literature, which were widely read by their Victorian audiences. One exceptional item from this list is the article by Charles Dickens, which portrays the tensions between didacticism, inherited folklore, and fairy tales of original composition. For independent investigation of Primary Sources after the outlines of this field are understood, Project Gutenberg is a helpful resource for accessing content. Using full scan images rather than HTML versions of eBooks also provides a glimpse at the material attributes of these texts.
Historical Sources
Andersen, H. C. (2008). Stories from Hans Andersen. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17860
The fairy tales of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen were widely read abroad and rapidly translated into English. His fairy tales participate in the mid-19th century trend of marketing these fairy tales for children. This trend marks the rise of children’s literature as we know it today.
Carroll, Lewis. (2006). Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19033
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland follows a young girl named Alice as she explores a fantastical realm full of talking creatures, anthropomorphized objects, and nursery rhyme references. This novel is part of the Victorian tradition of newly invented stories with fairy tale elements. These kinds of compositions are different than the relayed folklore of Grimm or Lang, which emerged from oral traditions.
Dickens, C. (n.d.). Frauds on the fairies. In P. V. Allingham (Ed.), Victorian Web. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/authors/dickens/pva/pva239.html
This article by Charles Dickens, which originally appeared in his journal Household Words in 1853, was written in response to his former illustrator. This illustrator, George Cruikshank, had created several fairy tale-inspired illustrations that portrayed the social evils of alcohol. These stories encouraged teetotalism, which ran against Dickens’ sensibilities of moderation. In this essay, Dickens condemns rewriting fairy tales for the purpose of heavy-handed moralism. He argues that “to preserve [fairy tales] in their usefulness, they must be as much preserved in their simplicity, and purity, and innocent extravagance” (par. 2).
Jacobs, J. (2008). English fairy tales. Archive.org. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7439
James Jacobs was one of the foremost folklorists of the 19th century who focused particularly on English folklore. His modus operandi primarily consisted of identifying folk tales that were explicitly English then reworking them to appeal to a broad audience. This collection provides several of his works including “Jack and the Beanstalk” and “The Three Little Pigs.”
Kingsley, C. (2008). The water-babies, a fairy tale for a land baby. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25564
This book shows how newly invented fairy tales had functions beyond popular entertainment. The story revolves around a chimney sweep named Tom who falls into a river to be transformed into a water-baby that dwells underwater. When Tom’s moral character matures, he regains his humanity. This story was written in favor of evolution to support Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and is a satire.
Lang, Andrew. (2009). The fairy books of Andrew Lang. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30580
These collections of folklore and fairy tales, attributed to Andrew Lang, were published between 1889 and 1913. The most famous series from this collection have different colors associated with them (The Blue Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book, etc.). Story elements from the originals deemed objectionable for child readership were removed by Lang.
MacDonald, George. (2008). Phantastes: A faerie romance for men and women. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/325
This novel, first published in 1858, marks the shift toward fairy tales of original composition, which would evolve into fantasy literature. This story is exceptional because it is one of the first originally composed fairy tales intended for an adult audience.
Ruskin, J. (2010). King of the Golden River. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33673
This novelette, written in 1841 by John Ruskin but first published in 1851, represents one of the earliest starts to newly invented fairy tales of the Victorian period. This story involves two evil brothers with a good younger brother, personified winds, and a golden dwarf. Shapeshifting and other sorts of magic drive the narrative.
Critical Sources
Campbell, J. (2015). Tradition and transformation: Fairy tales in the Victorian novel (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved December 30, 2018, from https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/33821/Campbell_washington_0250E_14542.pdf?sequence=1
This recent thesis looks at how Victorian novels incorporated fairy tales’ narrative structures. Campbell chooses to narrow in on two fairy tales in particular: “Beauty and the Beast” and “Bluebeard.” She compares the narrative structures of these two tales with novels ranging from Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) to Jane Eyre (1847) and Wuthering Heights (1847).
Grenby, M. O. (2014). Fantasy and fairytale in children’s literature. In Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/fantasy-and-fairytale-in-childrens-literature
This article discusses various definitions of fairy tales. The nature of discussions about fantasy and morality are also analyzed. Grenby notes that traditional criticism has viewed children’s literature as divided between realism and didacticism against fantasy and fun. The emergence of fairy tale literature is connected to the rise of the Romantic period and a shift away from the dominance of didacticism that marks 18th-century children’s literature.
Lam, S. (n.d.). Chapbooks in the English youth and imagination. In Victorian Web. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/genre/childlit/chapbooks.html
The history of the chapbook is explored in this selection from the Victorian Web. A chapbook is a “small, paper-covered book or pamphlet generally measuring three and a half by six inches” (par. 1.). The chapbook’s evolution from an intended adult audience through political and religious pamphlets to a form of literature meant for both children and adults is described.
Lam, Siobhan. (2007). Fairy tales: Surviving the evangelical attack. In Victorian Web. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.victorianweb.org/genre/childlit/fairytales1.html
Evangelical writers accused fairy tales for corrupting youth with poor morals, specifically non-English morals. These extended critiques led to the genre’s decline to publication through chapbooks, which are a sort of small book or pamphlet. However, this relegation led to the success of the genre because of how cheap this literature was to purchase. This economic situation allowed fairy tales to flourish in spite of the evangelical attacks. Siobhan’s document provides a history of how these fairy tales evolved and considers the material culture surrounding this evolution.
Université de Montréal. (2013). The Andrew Lang effect: network, discipline, method [Special issue]. Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net, 64, October 2013. Retrieved December 30, 2018, from https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/ravon/2013-n64-ravon01452/
This special issue of RaVoN focuses on the Andrew Lang effect. “What is A Network? (And Who is Andrew Lang?)” by Hensley introduces the topic and describes “Lang’s central position in the late-Victorian cultural system” and “status as a central node in multiple, interconnected fields” (par. 2). This issue explores those connections while also examining how the field of folklore intersected with numerous fields such as nascent anthropology.
Vassar College Libraries. (2015). The Age of Alice: Fairy tales, fantasy, and nonsense in Victorian England. Poughkeepsie, New York: Vassar College Libraries. Retrieved December 30, 2018, from https://specialcollections.vassar.edu/docs/VassarExhibitAgeOfAlice.pdf
This collection of essays accompanied Vassar College Libraries’ 2015 exhibit to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. These essays describe the cultural milieu within which Carroll wrote. The “Preface” and the essay “The Age of Alice: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Nonsense in Victorian England” were both written by Ronald Patkus. He notes Phantasmion: A Fairy Tale by Sara Coleridge (the daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge) as a turning-point in children’s literature, an evolution from moralizing tendencies. George MacDonald is also recognized as “one of the greatest” of the “writers of works for children” in the Victorian period (p. 23).
Warner, M. (2014). Where do fairy tales come from? BBC Culture. Retrieved December 30, 2018, from http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140930-where-do-fairy-tales-come-from
This article describes the history of fairy tales. It explains the difficulties of defining fairy tales but emphasizes their connection with folktales. A critical vocabulary for distinguishing between two types of fairy tales, those “newly invented” and those coming from an oral tradition, is provided.
Weidler, D. (1995). Fairy tales: Helpful or harmful? In Victorian Web. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/ge/dwfairy.html
This brief document summarizes arguments about fairy tales’ effects on children throughout the 19th century. Notably, it emphasizes that in the first part of the century, children’s “experience and passion were not separate” from an adult experience, while in the “latter part of the century this changed” as children “were viewed separately” (par. 2).
Windling, T. (2013). Queen Victoria’s book of spells, introduction. In Fantasy, magic, & fairyland in 19th century England. Retrieved from http://www.terriwindling.com/anthologies/fantasy-magic-fairyland-in-19th-century-england.html
This is the introduction of the book Fantasy, Magic, & Fairyland in 19th Century England (2013). In this introduction, Windling notes that England was late to the party when it came to an interest in fairy tales. Italy had already gone through this movement in the 16th century, France in the 17th century, and Germany in the 18th century. Windling argues that religion was the reason for the near-glacial rise of this interest in England. She describes the cultural influences intertwined with this interest in fairy tales, ranging from Romanticism to spiritualism to the popularity of the arts and crafts movement.
Websites
George MacDonald Society. (n.d.). North Wind. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.george-macdonald.com/
The North Wind is a journal published by the George MacDonald Society. This open access journal contains a number of articles analyzing George MacDonald’s work and his contemporaries. This journal has published numerous articles related to Victorian fairy tales.
Project Gutenberg. (n.d.). Project Gutenberg. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from www.gutenberg.org
Project Gutenberg dates back to 1971 and provided the world’s earliest eBooks. This website offers access to numerous primary source materials within the public domain. These eBooks can be used for conducting original research on the earliest editions of fairy tales.
Victorian Web. (n.d.). Victorian Web. Retrieved May 10, 2018, from http://www.victorianweb.org/
The Victorian Web predates the World Wide Web and is one of the oldest academic sites in existence. It is a classic example of digital humanities and takes the approach of focusing on the web of connections between subjects. Browsing is emphasized over searching. This site has an enormous amount of information with nearly 100,000 documents and images. Victorian culture, literature, art, religion, etc. can be easily explored through this resource.
Fairy Tales of 19th-Century Britain by Karl Hoenzsch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://hoenzsch.com/resources/fairytales/.