Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales is an infamous compendium of folk and fairy tales from across the world. Angela Carter is known for gothic eroticism and romanticised characters in her fairy tale retellings, so it’s no wonder she chose to compile a book of stories that show a darker and more mature side to the genre. Princesses come with traumatic backstories, morals fly out of the window, and the lives depicted are gritty and rarely happy. These are not stories for children.

A lot of the stories will feel familiar – variations on the popular Grimm’s fairy tales, or perhaps the origins of them. It is noted in the introduction that the tales were collected from all sorts of sources (listed in the back) and that they were copied down as precisely as possible, staying true to the vocabulary and style of the original teller. It’s wonderfully comforting to find out that the vast majority of folk tales told across the world all follow similar rules and tropes: cunning old women, enchanted objects, clever tricks to overcome cruel or silly curses. The cadence, tone, and often the accent of the storyteller is also evident in these stories, making it even easier to jump in and out of these bite-sized tales. The best examples of this are the Romany stories or the American stories where the accents and cadences are so strong, it feels like the authors are sat in the room with you.

These stories mostly fall into three categories: the fable, the quest of three tasks, and the pure nonsense. My favourite of these is by far the pure nonsense category, and the best of the pure nonsense tales from this collection are without a doubt the Inuit ones. With every other nation, the stories fall into the same sort of patterns, the same sort of tropes, and the same sort of stereotypes. 

The Inuit stories in particular are unlike any other folk tale I have ever read before, and I adored them. Most of them took up less than a page and every single one of them had a line or a twist that had me doing a double take or laughing out loud. It’s an Inuit tale that kicks off the whole collection and I think that’s a perfect choice to give the reader a taste of what to expect. 

Corinna Sargood’s illustrations are scattered throughout the book: beautiful lino prints that bring the caricature and absurdity of the stories into plain relief against the page. They bring an added element of fun to the collection and are effective in breaking up the stories and making the small font and bible-thin pages a little less intimidating.

This is not a book I would recommend reading front to back (though I did – it took me nine months!) The stories are helpfully organised into categories to help you pick whether you want a witchy story, a silly story, a miserable story, or a different kind altogether. My main takeaways from this nine-month reading experience are as follows:

1. Always trust the animal companion.
2. Always double check that people are actually dead.
3. Cutting bits off other people will not solve your problems.
4. More stories should end with the phrase ‘it served the little b**** right’. 

If you’re looking for an anthology of fairy tales that sets itself apart from the rest, consider picking this one up. 

Angela Carter’s Book of Fairy Tales is available now, you can order your copy HERE