The Blue Fairy Book (Deluxe Library Binding)

The Blue Fairy Book assembles a wide range of tales, including seven from the Brothers Grimm, five from Madame d'Aulnoy, three from the Arabian Nights, and four Norwegian fairytales. The Fairy Books are some of Andrew Lang's most notable works. Lang was fighting against the critics of his day who judged fairy tales as being harmful for young readers. Over a generation, Lang's books worked a revolution in this public perception.

These collections have been immensely influential, as their publication was the first time many of these stories had been written in English. The series was immediately popular due to Lang's reputation as a folklorist and the packaging of the uniform books. The series proved of great influence in children's literature, increasing the popularity of fairy tales over tales of real life.

Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 - 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. Lang was the eldest of the eight children born to John Lang, the town clerk of Selkirk, and his wife Jane Plenderleath Sellar, who was the daughter of Patrick Sellar, factor to the first Duke of Sutherland. On 17 April 1875, he married Leonora Blanche Alleyne, youngest daughter of C. T. Alleyne of Clifton and Barbados. She was (or should have been) variously credited as author, collaborator, or translator of Lang's Fairy Books which he edited. Lang was educated at Selkirk Grammar School, Loretto School, and the Edinburgh Academy, as well as the University of St Andrews and Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a first class in the final classical schools in 1868, becoming a fellow and subsequently honorary fellow of Merton College. He soon made a reputation as one of the most able and versatile writers of the day as a journalist, poet, critic, and historian. He was a member of the Order of the White Rose, a Neo-Jacobite society which attracted many writers and artists in the 1890s and 1900s.