who was a noted singer, to Mantua. He probably died in 1637. There may have been an earlier edition of The Pentamerone, which sold out. It was republished in Naples in 1645, 1674, 1714, 1722, 1728, 1749, 1788, and in Rome in 1679. This was the best collection of tales formed by a nation for a long time. The traditions were complete, and the author had a special talent for collecting them, and an intimate knowledge of dialect. This collection of fifty stories may be looked upon as the basis of many others. Basile wrote independently of Straparola, though a few tales are common to both. He was very careful not to alter the tale as he took it down from the people. He told his stories with allusions to manners and customs, to old stories and mythology. He abounds in picturesque, proverbial expressions, with turns and many similes, and displays a delightful exuberance of fancy. A valuable translation, with notes, was written by Felix Liebrecht, in 1842, and an English one by John Edward Taylor, in 1848. Keightley, in Fairy Mythology, has translated three of these tales and in Tales and Popular Fictions, two tales. Keightley's were the first translations of these tales into any language other than Italian. Among the stories of Basile are the German Cinderella, How Six got on in the World, Rapunzel, Snow White, Dame Holle, Briar Rose, and Hansel and Grethel.
1697. The Tales of Mother Goose, by Charles Perrault. In France the collecting of fairy tales began in
