p>Favorite Fairy Tales: The Childhood Choice of Representative Men and Women
WHAT are the best fairy stories? Are they not those which have lived most vividly in active minds? The ripeness of after life works its changes; but we are not dealing with literary judgments – rather with the choice of childhood which fortunately lingers in memory, whatever store of wisdom may come in later years. There is here no question of the new or unusual. On the contrary, it is the ideas or visions handed down for generations or centuries and set in final form that remain with us as types of fancy or wisdom. Of these there are so many that a selection is essential. No one book can be a complete treasure-house of all the imagination, humor, and sentiment of the fairy tale. But it has been possible to obtain a representative judgment for this volume which we believe to be of peculiar worth.
This book gives us the favorite fairy tales of men and women who have gained eminence in American life. It is a book, therefore, based upon an original plan, which stands by itself. Any collection formed by one person must reflect personal preferences. It must have obvious limitations, however excellent – as in the case of Miss Mulock or Laboulaye – the choice of the single editor may be. But to a large extent such a collection as this represents that consensus of opinion which invests a given work with the rank of a classic. The desire of the publishers has been to determine the youthful preferences of those whose opinions carry weight and to present their selections among the wealth of fairy tales which the world cherishes from one generation to another. Such a thing as a collection of all good fairy tales would be unthinkably cumbersome. We need guidance and selection. For the expressions of personal choice afforded in the interests of this book, the publishers desire to offer their grateful acknowledgments.
It has happened naturally that more than one vote has been cast for the same story. For example, the president of Yale, in his selection of “Jack the Giant-killer,” had the companionship of the president of Columbia and of the editor of Harper’s Magazine, who are really represented, therefore, by a second choice. The three stories preferred by the chairman of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission had all been preferred by others.
But “Cinderella” is evidently quite the equal of “Jack the Giant-killer” in the affections of readers, and the choice of this well-loved tale has been accompanied by some charming letters from which it is impossible not to quote.
Thus the Hon. John Bigelow writes: “Perrault’s story of Cinderella made the deepest impression upon me. It is the only one from which I can now remember to have received a distinct and permanent ethical impression.”
“I am not really conscious of any special preference for one fairy story over another,” wrote Professor Lounsbury, “but as somebody, it seems to me, ought to stand up for sentiment, I am going to vote for ‘Cinderella.’ I hesitated a moment about ‘The Sleeping Beauty,’ but I leave that for one younger.”
In a letter rich in personal quality, the Hon. Grover Cleveland wrote: “My youthful days are so far away, and fairy stories had so little to do with their enjoyment, that I do not feel that I ought to venture an opinion on such an important subject as that to which you refer. For want of a better thing to do, I have submitted the question to my children, and so far as I am able to determine, the canvass of their votes is in favor of ‘Cinderella.’ It is only fair to say that two of the three to whom the question was submitted are little girls.”
Another glimpse of domestic sympathy comes in the choice of the Hon. William J. Bryan, editor and author, as well as publicist, who says: “My wife assures me that I shall make no mistake if I commend the tales of Hans Christian Andersen, notably that of ‘The Ugly Duckling.’”
It is a change from public life to the world of letters to find Dr. Van Dyke and Dr. Mabie in agreement with Dr. Shailer Mathews regarding the rank of “The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.” But it is not to this that Dr. Van Dyke gives precedence. “If my memory serves me right,” he says, “the first fairy story which made a strong impression on my mind in boyhood was that of ‘Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp.’ Next after that in time, and, I think, a little beyond it in interest, came the story of the ‘Seven Wild Swans,’ and next to that the story of ‘The Sleeping Beauty.’”
As to “Hop o’ My Thumb” we may be pardoned for quoting the close of a singularly delightful letter from Mr. Henry James, who says: “It is the vague memory of this sense of him, as some small, precious object, like a lost gem or a rare and beautiful insect on which one might inadvertently tread, or might find under the sofa or behind the window-cushion, that leads me to think of ‘Hop o’ My Thumb’ as my earliest and sweetest and most repeated cupful at the fount of fiction.”
Quite literally a world removed from this was the answer of the modest Japanese conqueror, General Kuroki, who laughed at first and disclaimed Japan’s possession of fairy tales as we understand them. “I always tried to forget fairy tales,” he said; “but of nursery stories I think the most popular and the most widely known in Japan is the story of Momotaro.” But this tale of the “son of a peach,” which relates the conquest of a stronghold of devils, and the rescue of two daughters of daimios does not come within the scope of this volume.
A broader choice than those which have been quoted is afforded by Mrs. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, who writes: “As a child I was a great reader and lover (and a small creator) of fairy tales. But of them all the only ones which come readily to my mind are Hans Christian Andersen’s.” Equally comprehensive is the answer of Mrs. Georgia A. Kendrick, the lady principal of Vassar College: “Grimm’s tales stand to me for the best of that kind of lore.”
An even more catholic liking breathes in the answer of President Woodrow Wilson, who declares: “The truth is that I was so voracious of fairy tales when I was a small boy, that I loved them all almost equally well, and cannot now say that I had any favorite. All was grist that came to my mill. I am very much interested in the undertaking, and wish it all success.”
In some cases, much to the regret of the publishers, it has not been possible to include a choice. Thus Dr. John S. Billings, librarian of the New York Public Library, tells us that the story which made the most impression upon him was the “Nibelungenlied” as presented by Carlyle in the Westminster Review for July, 1831, of which an odd number came in his way when he was a boy. “I did not understand one quarter of it,” Dr. Billings writes, “but what I did impressed me greatly. If I had to select from Perrault’s fairy tales, I should probably agree with Dr. Hadley” – another tribute to the perennial charm of “Jack the Giant-killer.”
The interest of these personal literary experiences justify a quotation from Dr. E. G. Cooley, superintendent of the Chicago schools: “I was pretty well grown,” he writes, “before any of this literature reached me. My people were not believers in fairy stories, and circumstances did not put them in my way. My boyhood hero was Eumenes, as described in the second volume of Rollin’s Ancient History.” Unfortunately the scope of the present volume has not permitted the inclusion of Carlyle’s version of the “Nibelungenlied” or of Rollin’s tale of Eumenes, or of the old ballad of “The Children in the Wood,” which was the choice of Dr. W. H. Maxwell, City Superintendent of Schools in New York.
While the reply of that sincere nature-lover, John Burroughs, represents a gospel of negation, yet there is a vivid suggestiveness in the later interest of the man – one whose sympathies and perception have remained fresh and wholly sincere. “The truth is,” he writes, “I knew no fairy stories in my youth. That kind of literature did not come within my reach. Our school library held no novels or fairy books. An old woman who visited our house used to tell us youngsters the story of ‘Jack and the Bean-stalk,’ and ‘Jack the Giant-killer,’ ‘Bluebeard,’ etc. When I had a boy of my own, I used to read Hans Christian Andersen to him, and get quite as much interested as he did. I do not recall that I ever read any fairy tales before Andersen’s, and did not read these till past middle life.”
It may be said again that while this book lays no claim to comprehensiveness, we believe that its personal guidance represents a high value which is fitly reinforced by the distinctive imagination of Mr. Peter Newell. In the light of his quaint fancy, unexpected humor, and sympathetic insight, these classic tales reveal a new store of riches, and are clothed with a charm which even those of us who love them had not foreseen.
In the majority of cases these stories reproduce the excellent versions