MOTHER GOOSE, LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD, SLEEPING BEAUTY, CINDERELLA: THE DEFINITIVE FAIRY TALE COLLECTION, BEAUTIFUL 41-VOLUME 1785-89 FIRST EDITION COLLECTION OF LE CABINET DES FÉES, WITH LOVELY COPPERPLATE ENGRAVINGS

DE MAYER, Charles-Joseph, editor. Le Cabinet des Fées, ou Collection Choisie des Contes des Fées, et Autres Contes Merveilleux, Ornés de Figures. Geneva and Paris: Barde, Manget and Cuchet, 1785-89. 41 volumes. 12mo, mid-19th century three-quarter red morocco, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt.

First edition, 12mo issue (published contemporarily with the octavo issue) of this encyclopedic fairy tale anthology, illustrated with 120 copper-engraved plates by Pierre-Clément Marillier, beautifully bound. Includes the most famous tales and considered “one of the strongest influences on the spread of fairy-tales for children.”

Toward the end of the Sun King’s reign, his courtiers and other French aristocrats embraced fairy tales, folktales and oriental stories. Readers in fashionable salons turned from multi-volume novels to stories “that could be read and discussed, encouraging the now favored art of conversation, all in one session… It may also be argued that in the later years of Louis XIV a society exhausted by extravagant wars and by fervid court competition and intrigue was happy to retreat to the relatively simple moral basis and childhood associations of fairy tales” (Carpenter & Prichard, 178). Le Cabinet des Fées (The Fairy Library) is “the definitive set” of this literature (Clute & Grant, 331). Among its highlights are the “Mother Goose” stories of Charles Perrault, “the most significant figure in the creation of the literary fairy tale” (Barron, 58)-“Le Petit Chaperon Rouge” (Little Red Riding Hood), “La Barbe Bleue” (Blue Beard), “La Belle au Bois Dormant” (Sleeping Beauty) and “Cendrillon” (Cinderella), among others-and tales by Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy-including “L’Oiseau Bleu” (The Blue Bird), in which the original “Prince Charming” makes his bow-who, by way of her English translators, bequeathed the name “fairy tale” to the genre. The Nouveaux Contes des Fées of Henriette-Julie de Castelnau Murat appear, as does Jean-Jacques Rosseau’s La Reine Fantasque (The Odd Queen). The collection features “another sort of literary magic, the oriental tale,” with a translation of the popular Tales of the Genii by Sir Charles Morrell (pseudonym of James Ridley), and Antoine Galland’s translation of the Arabian Nights, “a masterpiece in its own right” (Hollier, 401). “Galland’s translation remained standard well into the 19th century, and parts of it were even retranslated into Arabic” (Barron, 58). The set also contains two of the earliest printings of what “may be the best-known fairy tale in the world” (Clute & Grant, 331), “La Belle et la Bête” (“Beauty and the Beast”): the original version by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve and the shorter version by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. Marillier, who provided engravings for the volumes, “was among the most accomplished and abundant of 18th-century illustrators… In his extended series of plates [for this set], he maintained a high level of proficiency” (Ray, Art of the French Illustrated Book, 81). Comprehensive in its scope, this landmark collection was “one of the strongest influences on the spread of fairy-tales for children,” in France, England, and beyond (Muir, English Children’s Books, 51). Text in French. Brunet I:1339. Graesse II:2. Five Centuries of Childhood 50.

Text generally clean, morocco gilt bindings lovely. A most desirable centerpiece for any collection of children’s literature.