English Fairy Tales (Macmillan Collector's Library)

Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

Fairy tales are written to both entertain and educate, and published in the shadow of the First World War, F. A. Steel’s retellings of forty-one ‘English Fairy Tales’ is a classic collection of such stories which range from the familiar – ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, ‘Little Red Riding-Hood’, and ‘The Three Little Pigs’ – to the perhaps less well-known – ‘The Black Bull of Norroway’, ‘Nix Nought Nothing’, and ‘The Red Ettin’ . Originally published in 1918 it reflects the nationalistic concerns of the period. Steel takes the reader on a journey from Cornwall to Bamborough Castle, via a palace by the sea and high into the sky, where a giant lives. These magical tales are brought to life by one of the best-known illustrators of the time, Arthur Rackham.

Stories included in this edition:
St. George of Merrie England
The Story of the Three Bears
Tom-Tit-Tot
The Golden Snuff-Box
Tattercoats
The Three Feathers
Lazy Jack
Jack the Giant-Killer
The Three Sillies
The Golden Ball
The Two Sisters
The Laidly Worm
Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse
Jack and the Beanstalk
The Black Bull of Norroway
Catskin
The Three Little Pigs
Nix Naught Nothing
Mr. and Mrs. Vinegar
The True History of Sir Thomas Thumb
Henny-Penny
The Three Heads of the Well
Mr. Fox
Dick Whittington and his Cat
The Wee Bannock
How Jack went out to seek his Fortune
The Bogey-Beast
Little Red Riding-Hood
Childe Rowland
The Wise Men of Gotham
Caporushes
The Babes in the Wood
The Red Ettin
The Fish and the Ring
Lawkamercyme
Master of all Masters
Molly Whuppie and the Double-faced Giant
The Ass, the Table, and the Stick
The Well of the World's End
The Rose Tree

Flora Annie Steel (1847–1929) was the author of more than thirty books, beginning in the 1880s, most of which were novels describing Anglo-Indian life during the British Raj. She moved to India with her husband in 1867 and lived there for twenty-two years. Steel had a strong interest in traditional Indian culture and folk tales, and was a contemporary of John Lockwood Kipling, Rudyard Kipling's father, with whom she worked to encourage local arts and crafts.

Arthur Rackham (1867–1939) was one of the leading figures from the 'Golden Age' of British book illustration. His ornate style used pen and ink, sometimes paired with subtle watercolours, and many of his books were published as de luxe limited editions. His reputation was founded after he illustrated Washington Irving's Rip van Winkle in 1905, followed by Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens for J. M. Barrie in 1906.