PREFACE
The Fairy Tales of the Countess d'Aulnoy, after having delighted old and young for nearly two hundred years, are now, strange to say, for the first time presented to the English reader in their integrity.
This assertion may appear startling to those who are familiar with many English versions of the most popular of them; but it is, nevertheless, a fact, as the examination of this little volume will prove.
Early in the last century, three volumes of Fairy Tales were published, under the title of "A Collection of Novels and Tales of the Fairies, written by that celebrated wit of France, the Countess d'Anois, translated from the best edition of the original French, by several hands." And in 1817 the same collection reappeared in two small volumes, with a new preface, and entitled, "Fairy Tales, translated from the French of the Countess d'Anois." Now, it will scarcely be believed that, although the collectors introduced the novels which link the second series of her Fairy Tales together, after the fashion of the old Italian novelists, they not only omitted the whole of the first series, but also several of the best of the second; substituting, in the place of the latter,
