The Vine: October 1, 2010
I’m trying to find a collection of fairy tales I owned as a child in the late ’80s. It was a bigger-sized (length and width) book, with beautiful illustrations. The pictures were kind of like the style of Warwick Goble, but it doesn’t appear to be his work. There are a few specific stories I remember from it: one where, while trying to save an enchanted princess, her suitors get turned into flagstones.
The story “Diamonds and Toads” was also in it, but I’m not sure if it was actually called “Diamonds and Toads” in this compilation. I don’t think it’s The Classic Fairy Tales that was compiled by the Opies, but it looked very similar to that book.
The artwork was stunning enough that I remember, very clearly, the illustration for the story about the princess and the flagstones. Hopefully, the quality of the pictures will make it easier to identify.
I’m also searching for a short children’s book that includes a story about a girl walking to visit her grandmother(?) but on the way her feet wear down, and she has to buy new feet from a peddler.Please help? I’m trying to rebuild my collection of the ones I loved as a child before my daughter is born.
At least “There Is a Carrot in My Ear” was easy to find
*****
I need help finding out the name of a play. I never read the entire play, but a scene from it was included in a drama book I had in college (around 2004, though I think the book was older than that).
The scene was between two women — the first was a woman in her 20s dating an older man, and the second was the teenage daughter of the man she was dating. I think the scene occurred shortly after the daughter discovered them in a compromising position. I think one of the characters was named Laurel and the play may have been set in Alaska, or at the very least somewhere cold.
The two women talk, smoke a joint and listen to Supertramp. The daughter makes a reference to her father’s penis at some point, which makes the other woman uncomfortable.
By the end of the scene, it seems like the woman is falling for the girl’s father and is reluctant to admit it, and I think there may be some sort of hint that her love will not be returned. Any suggestions?
Laura
Tags: Ask The Readers popcult
New feet sounds like a story in “Mouse Tales” by Arnold Lobel.
The peddler selling new feet was in a charming little book called “Mouse Tales” by Arnold Lobel. A mouse goes to visit his mother and wears out all of his modes of transportation. When he gets to his mother’s house, she says “what nice new feet you have!”
http://www.amazon.com/Mouse-Tales-Can-Read-Book/dp/0064440133
Lulu, that was my thought too, except in Mouse Tales, it was a boy, not a girl, if I remember correctly.
@At Least, I imagine you’ve already ruled out Arthur Rackham as the illustrator? Because when someone mentions “beautiful illustrations for fairy tales,” his are the ones that automatically come to mind.
I wonder if the illustrator could have been Pauline Baynes? Yes, she’s most often associated with Narnia and Tolkien, but she did do a book of Grimm’s fairy tales.
I vividly remember a story about three sisters, the first two of which, being in the grand tradition of fairy tales greedy and selfish, get turned into paving stones. It was in my fifth-grade English reader. Gosh, I haven’t thought of that in years!
“Toads and Diamonds” is referenced in Connie Willis’s Bellwether (the main character buys it as an unappreciated birthday gift)but my copy doesn’t have any information on the author. So apparently I’m no help at all today.
“Diamonds and Toads” is a Charles Perrault tale, and in his collection it’s called “The Fairies,” so often that’s what it’s called in other collections. (The Grimm variant doesn’t have the coming-out-of-the-mouth motif, and I’m going to assume that’s what you’re remembering.) Unfortunately, the Opies’ Classic Fairy Tales doesn’t have just one illustrator, but a variety of historical illustrators, so that doesn’t get us very far stylistically save from ruling out a deliberately modern style. It’s also not clear if we’re talking color or black and white illustrations–if they were all color,especially if there’s more than one per tale, we’re probably not talking an old edition but a newer title in an old-fashioned style.
It wasn’t a favorite tale for illustrators, which might help you. There is a Rackham volume, _The Arthur Rackham Fairy Book_, with an illustrated “Toads and Diamonds,” so you could check that. Sur La Lune has a page with some of the public domain illustrations of the tale at http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/illustrations/diamondstoads/index.html. The tale was also in Lang’s Blue Fairy Book, so collections that derived from Lang might have included it, too.
There are bibliographic tools, especially the _Index to Fairy Tales, Myths, and Legends_ series started by Mary Huse Eastman, that indexes folktales that have appeared in collections; if you’re really determined, sit down with Google Books and/or the reference room of your nearest well-stocked reference room and sort through the listings.
So no answer, but maybe it’ll give you some tools with which to find it.
@Laura, I think the play is the Homesteaders by Nina Shengold – my husband was in this play in college! There are about 32 pages of it on Google BOoks.
Yes Heather, that’s it! Thank you so much. I performed the Laurel/Jake scene in a drama class in college and loved it. I’m going to track down the whole play and buy it
Hey, this is OP for the fairy-tale query~I found it! The illustrator was Margaret Evans Price! I haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy of the book yet, but I’ve seen pictures from it, and it’s definitely her! Thank you all so much~I found her through sur la lune fairytales!