Charles Perrault (1628−1703) was a French poet, writer and one of the most beloved personalities of 17th-century France. He is still remembered today for a collection of fairy tales published in 1697 called Mother Goose's Tales. (Wikipedia).
We know about the writer's life mainly through the memoirs he wrote for his grandchildren. Although he wrote in detail about public life, but hid his personal life, and therefore very little is known about his wife and children.
Tales of Charles Perrault (list)
Biography of the writer
Perrault was born in Paris in 1628 in the family of a wealthy lawyer. At the age of nine he was sent to the Collège de Beauvais day school. Although he was always first in his class, his school career ended prematurely when he quarreled with his teacher while debating philosophy. Young Perrault left school, never to return! But he was not left alone. One of his friends, a boy named Beurein, supported him and left school with him. Over the next four years, both boys studied together and remained lifelong friends.
In 1651, Charles received a degree from the University of Orléans. He tried many professions, including medicine, theology and law. He then took a job in the office of his brother Pierre, who was then chief tax commissioner. Work was scarce, and he read books from his brother's extensive library.
Later he returned to writing poetry, which he loved very much as a child. His poems, published anonymously, instantly became so popular that one famous poet even took credit for some of them. Then Perrault considered it necessary to reveal his authorship. But when he learned that the poet had used his poems to impress a young lady, he forgave the fraud.
Later, Perrault turned his attention to architecture. In 1657, he drew up plans for a house for his brother and supervised its construction. The French minister Colbert was so impressed by Charles's work that he took him into charge of the construction of the royal buildings and put him in charge of Versailles, which was then under construction.
Perrault took on this work with enthusiasm, but continued to do other things: he wrote odes in honor of the king, planned projects and even found time to encourage musicians and support the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully. He also worked with his brother Claude to found the Academy of Sciences.
In the second half of the 17th century, a dispute arose between French writers about the advantages of modern writers compared to writers of antiquity. Charles Perrault played an important role in this debate, arguing against the genre and thematic limitations of classical literature.
His youthful habit of independent thinking drew him into this most famous literary controversy of that era. In one of his poems, Perrault praised the writers of his age, but humiliated the authors ancient classics. This led to a huge scandal with writers rushing to attack Perrault, who defended himself with good humor and published his defense in four volumes"Le Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes" (The Parallel of Ancients and Modernity). This work was published in 1688-1696. Charles felt great pride in this dry and boring work, which is now completely forgotten.
Beginning of a literary career
After twenty years of work for Colbert, Perrault resigned in 1683. Resignation from civil service marked the beginning of his greatest literary activity. He wrote and published several poems and other literary works, most of which are now forgotten. Between 1691 and 1697 he composed his immortals:
- Stories about death (Stories or tales from the past);
- Fairy tales in verse.
It is surprising that Perrault was ashamed of his fairy tales. He refused to publish the tales in his name, so they were published under the pseudonym P. Darmancourt. To maintain the secret, Perrault went so far as to abandon his regular publisher, Coinard.
Tales of Charles Perrault
IN folk art Perrault found rich stories and images to create new ones works of art. He turned to folklore, collecting several stories published in 1697 in a collection "Tales of Mother Goose".
The tales appeared anonymously in the magazine Requail, which was published in The Hague.
- Gingerbread house.
- Funny wishes.
- Dove (Donkey skin).
The first tale appeared anonymously in 1691, but was later republished under the author's name in 1695. Perrault based his stories on folk tales. However, Griselda's story was not directly based on the fairy tale, but was borrowed from Boccaccio.
The collection of fairy tales became instantly popular, spawning dozens of imitators in France. The book was extremely successful and was eventually translated into English language in 1729 by Robert Samer.
In the modern version, Perrault's original stories have been lost most of its gruesome details. The original stories are often dark, some of them what we today call "adult themes", and by modern standards there is a lot of violence. The story of the murderer Bluebeard and his murdered wives is especially terrible.
Even beloved classics Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood are brutally honest when it comes to little children being eaten. Nevertheless, these tales make an impression on the reader as strongly as ever. You can read the fairy tales of Charles Perrault endlessly. Each story is entertaining and comes with a moral at the end, which often seems strange and funny to our "modern" thinking.
World-famous writer, poet and prose writer, member of the Paris Academy, Charles Perrault was a true Frenchman. He was born on January 12, 1628 in Paris, lived 75 years and died on May 16, 1703 in Paris. The life of the great creator consisted of loud ups and crushing downs, but he left his bright, indelible mark on the history of the world.
Brief biography and interesting facts from the life of Perrault:
— Little Charles was born along with his twin brother Francois, but after 6 months the babies got sick and poor Francois died.
— Charles became the youngest and favorite child in a family where 4 more sons grew up - Jean, Pierre, Claude and Nicolas.
“The father of the family held a high position in the parliamentary court, and the mother ran the house and devoted a lot of time to the children’s education.
— At the age of 8, Charles entered college, but his studies did not work out right away. Due to a conflict with teachers, Perrault dropped out of college and began self-education.
— With the help of private teachers, thanks to hard work and perseverance, Charles learned 3 languages, re-read all the library literature and delved into ancient history peace.
— In 1651, following his brothers, the purposeful Charles became a certified lawyer and began his professional career. Then the first attempts at writing began. A talented, slightly eccentric young man wrote poetry, plays, comedies and parodies.
— In 20 years, Perrault made a dizzying career and became a member of the Academy of Sciences. At the age of 45, Charles married 19-year-old Marie Guchon, and in 6 years the family had 4 children - 3 sons and a little daughter, Françoise.
A break in the fate of the talented writer occurred after the death of his wife. He became very devout and devoted his life to raising his children. The most beloved son, Pierre, first went to prison, and then died tragically on the battlefields. Soon the father followed his son, leaving his rich literary heritage to France and the whole world.
The Works of Charles Perrault: Tales of Mother Goose
By 1969, the young author had accumulated an impressive amount of creative baggage. With a collection of works, which included 14 odes and poems, Charles was admitted to the king and became a member of the high society France. When the writer retired and began to live on a pension, his works no longer attracted the attention of the royal court.
Then Charles Perrault made his knight move! He paid tribute to fashion and began to publish his brilliant fairy tales. In 1694, the first works were sold in small editions, and 2 years later they were published best works writer of Donkey Skin and Sleeping Beauty.
Note to small and big geniuses! Real fame and recognition of literary talent came to the writer in adulthood. He used folk tales, reworked them in a modern way and brought the wisdom of ancient legends to the high society.
The collection “Tales of Mother Goose,” published by the writer in 1695, became a literary sensation of that time. In one year the book was published three times and included best fairy tales writer. All famous characters were taken from folk tales and only “Rike the Tuft” was invented by the brilliant author himself.
Note to readers! In the USSR, Charles Perrault was the third most popular children's writer after Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. Over 70 years, from 1917 to 1987, collections of Perrault's fairy tales were published 300 times with a total circulation of 61,000,000 copies.
Immortal heroes of the storyteller Perrault
Famous French writer gave children many wonderful fairy tales, and his heroes became favorite characters among several generations of readers.
Let's remember the most popular heroes from the works of Charles Perot:
Little Red Riding Hood is a girly story that parents tell to 3-year-old children.
Cinderella- an eternal fairy tale about how a messy kind hearted became a princess.
sleeping Beauty – mysterious story about the spindle and the kiss of love.
Puss in Boots- Perrault's best character, voiced by Antonio Banderas himself.
Thumb Boy – cousin Thumbelina, a cunning and brave fellow who deceived the terrible Ogre.
Bluebeard- a scary fairy tale that is not read at night. It tells the story of a wealthy baron nicknamed Bluebeard, who tortured and killed his wives.
Rike-Khokholok- a story about an ugly prince who fell in love with a beautiful princess for his intelligence, nobility and kind heart.
Reading cautionary tales With beautiful pictures will be an exciting journey for your child magical land. Fairy tales are written for children large print, and colorful illustrations will allow children to develop imagination and rich imagination.
Children's literature published on this page is intended for free online readings in the family circle. Educators use it for retelling stories in kindergarten, and teachers use it for staging plays in school theaters. Read aloud with your children, tell bedtime stories, and inner world the child will be filled with the light of fairy tales.
For boys and girls of different ages (kids 3 years old, 4 years old, 5 years old, 6 years old, 7 years old, 8 years old, 9 years old, 10 years old...), pupils kindergarten and schoolchildren, as well as their parents. Happy reading!
Charles Perrault was born in Paris in 1628 on January 12. Charles is a French poet of the classical era, critic, member of the French Academy. Most of all, Charles became famous for “Tales of Mother Goose.”
Career
Charles was born in Paris, in the family of parliamentarian Pierre Perrault. There were seven children in the family, Charles was the youngest of all. He was born with his twin brother Francois, but unfortunately he died six months after birth. His older brother Claude Perrault became the architect and author of the eastern part of the Louvre facade. Charles studied at Beauvais College, but did not finish his studies. Then he acquired a lawyer's license, but worked very little in his profession; he became a clerk for his brother Claude.
Charles enjoys the trust of Jean Colbert; it was he who determined the internal policy at the court of Louis the 14th concerning the arts. Colbert gets Charles a job as a secretary at the academy belles lettres. Charles was also the controller of the Surinentate for royal buildings. Then Colbert dies, and Charles loses his patron and falls into disgrace, losing his writer's pension, and then his secretary's position. In 1697, his collection “Tales of Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings” was published.
They constitute a literary adaptation of folk tales (they were heard by Charles from his nurse), except for one - “Rike the Tuft”. Perrault composed it himself. Perrault became known far beyond the literary circle thanks to this book. Perrault introduced fairy tales into the genres of high literature.
Fairy tales made literature more democratic and had a significant influence on the world-class fairy tale tradition, on the fairy tales of G.H. Andersen, Brothers Grimm. For the first time, fairy tales were published in Russian in Moscow in 1768 under the title “Tales of Sorceresses with Moral Teachings.” Based on the plots of Charles's fairy tales, “The Castle of Duke Bluebeard” by B. Bartok, “Cinderella” by G. Rossini, “Cinderella” by S. S. Prokofiev, the ballet “The Sleeping Beauty” by P. I. Tchaikovsky and others were created.
Perrault published his publications not under his own name, but under the name of his 19-year-old son Perrault d'Armancourt, so he tried to protect his reputation because he had once worked with a low genre in literature. Charles's son tried to add to his surname the name of the Armancourt castle purchased by his father, then tried to get a job as a secretary for the king's niece, the Princess of Orleans, to whom the fairy tales were dedicated.
At the beginning of the 20th century, a discussion arose during which the question of the authorship of fairy tales was raised; some tried to prove that the fairy tales were written by Perrault's son. But the traditional version of authorship is more likely.
THE MYSTERY OF CHARLES PERROT
a venerable academician, once the right hand of the powerful Minister of Finance J.B. Colbert - Charles Perrault.
Nowadays, few people remember about his poems and epigrams, about his multi-volume work “On the Old and the New,” about his service at the court of Louis XIV, but here are the fairy tales that, according to some researchers, he was even embarrassed to sign own name, made him immortal. Thanks to them he entered world history literature.
The name of Charles Perrault is one of the most popular names of storytellers in Russia, along with the names of Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, Hoffmann, Carlo Collodi and Astrid Lindgren.
The total circulation of Perrault's fairy tales over the past two hundred years in our country alone has exceeded tens of millions of copies.However, until now the Russian public did not know the biography of Charles Perrault.
This gap was filled by a wonderful book (ZhZL series)about the life of Charles Perrault (1628-1703), lawyer, academician, poet and writer, favorite of the legendary Sun King Louis XIV, written in beautiful, laconic language, full of facts unknown in Russia.
Monument to Charles Perrault in Paris, Tuileries Garden.
It was probably not placed here by chance... When, during the time of Louis XIV, some nobles wanted to close the Tuileries Garden to everyone except the king, Charles Perrault argued that it should be open to the public - and it is open to this day.
The story of how this book was written is unusual.
The author of the biography was the Russian writer-philologist Sergei Boyko, and the inspirer, and, in fact, the organizer of the plan, was a Frenchman, one of the largest experts on Perrault’s work, Marc Soriano.
But here we enter the shadow of mystery...
It turns out that philological science still does not have an exact answer to the elementary question: who wrote the famous fairy tales?
The fact is that when the book of Mother Goose's fairy tales was first published, and it happened in Paris on October 28, 1696, the author of the book was identified as someone Pierre de Armancourt.
Frontispiece of Perrault's book published in England in 1763
However, in Paris they quickly learned the truth. Under the magnificent pseudonym de Armancourt was hiding none other than the youngest and beloved son of Charles Perrault, nineteen-year-old Pierre. For a long time it was believed that the writer’s father resorted to this trick only to introduce the young man into high society, into the circle of the young Princess of Orleans, niece of King Louis the Sun. After all, the book was dedicated to her. But later it turned out that young Perrault, on the advice of his father, wrote down some folk tales, and there are documentary references to this fact.
In the end, it was Charles Perrault himself who completely confused the situation.
Meanwhile, he had every reason to include this book in the register of victories. The book of fairy tales was an unprecedented success among the Parisians in 1696; every day 20-30, and sometimes 50 books a day were sold in Claude Barbin's shop! This, on the scale of one store, was something that probably wasn’t even dreamed of today even in the bestseller about Harry Potter.
The publisher repeated the print run three times during the year. This was unheard of. First France, then the whole of Europe fell in love with magical stories about Cinderella, her evil sisters and glass slipper, re-read a scary fairy tale about the knight Bluebeard, who killed his wives, was rooting for the polite Little Red Riding Hood, who was swallowed by an evil wolf. (Only in Russia did the translators correct the ending of the fairy tale; here the wolf is killed by woodcutters, and in the French original the wolf ate both the grandmother and granddaughter).
In fact, Mother Goose's tales became the world's first book written for children. Before this, no one had specifically written books for children...
The inexplicable silence of Charles Perrault has today given rise to two main scientific versions about the authorship of fairy tales.
The first is that Perrault himself wrote the book, but out of principle he decided to secure the glory of fairy tales for his beloved son. The second version - the fairy tales were actually written by the youngest son Perrault, the brilliant young man Pierre Perrault, and the writer father only literary processed his son’s works.
The fate of Pierre himself was terrible.
After the triumphant success of the book, he immediately entered close circle Princess of Orleans, but unfortunately, six months later, in a vulgar street fight, he stabbed his fellow Guillaume Coll, the son of a certain Marie Fourier, a carpenter’s widow, with a sword. The murder of a commoner with a noble sword was at that time an absolutely immoral act. No intimacy with royal court now there was no question. Pierre ended up in prison, and the widow started a multi-step lawsuit against the culprit. After all, the father of the killer, the favorite of the palace, the president of the French Academy, Charles Perrault, was very rich and had recently acquired the ancient castle of Rosier near the city of Troyes on the banks of the Seine. Calling on all his connections and money for help, the father barely rescued his son from prison and urgently bought him the rank of lieutenant in the royal regiment. Pierre returned to the front of the next French battle, where he died at lightning speed.
The death of first his son, and then Charles Perrault himself, forever took the secret of authorship to the grave of centuries. For some time, Mother Goose's tales, by inertia, were still published under the name of Pierre d'Harmancourt, but in 1724, 10 years after the writer's death, the general opinion prevailed that the tales were written by Charles Perrault the Elder. They are still published under this name.
Based on the plots of Perrault's fairy tales, the operas "Cinderella" by G. Rossini, "The Castle of Duke Bluebeard" by B. Bartok, the ballets "The Sleeping Beauty" by P. I. Tchaikovsky, "Cinderella" by S. S. Prokofiev and others were created.
"The influence of Charles Perrault... is so great that if you ask someone today to tell you a typical fairy tale, he will probably tell you one of the French ones: "Puss in Boots", "Cinderella" or "Little Red Riding Hood""". (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Charles Perrault came from a wealthy Parisian family. His grandfather was a merchant in Turin. His father Pierre received an excellent education and was a lawyer at the Paris Parliament. He met his wife Paquette Leclerc in his parish, in the church of Saint-Etienne du Mont. Paquette came from a noble family and brought her husband a good dowry, including the village of Viry (now the city of Viry-Châtillon), where the family went during the days when the plague was raging in Paris.
Charles was the most youngest child in the family. He had a twin brother, Francois, who lived only six months and thus Charles became not the sixth, but the fifth son of the Perrault family. The rest of the brothers lived quite long and rich lives: Jean is a lawyer, Pierre is the general tax collector of Paris, Claude is a physician and architect, author of the project for the famous Louvre gallery, Nicolas is a doctor of theology at the Sorbonne.
It should be noted that the Perrault family was very religious. They were close to Jansenism, maintained an acquaintance with Blaise Pascal (although in many ways Charles’s views did not coincide with him), and defended representatives of this trend in court. And Charles Perrault is already in mature years published two poetic works on biblical themes: “The Creation of the World and Adam” and “St. Paul.”
Portrait of Louis XIV with his family
Charles collected taxes and wrote poetry. In 1653 they already appeared in print. In addition, his older brothers introduced him to a high-society salon, whose visitors were famous authors.
But "... all your talents will not decorate you in the least, since in order to thunder with them, there is no godmother in reserve."
Such a "godmother" for Charles Perrault for many years became the powerful Minister of Finance J.-B. Colbert .
Jean-Baptiste Colbert - statesman under Louis XIV, chief intendant of finance, royal buildings, fine arts and factories. He worked 15 hours every day, did not pay attention to the court world, the opinions of the world, went on foot to the king...
Under him, Charles took the position of Secretary General in the Intendant of Royal Buildings and supervised the work of the tapestry workshop, and even made drawings for them himself;
Another reason for the French academician’s turn to fairy tales was the dispute “about the old and the new,” the instigator of which was Perrault himself. He opposed the dominance of ancient images in literature and art; the fairy tales he published were supposed to confirm that folk wisdom is in no way inferior to ancient book samples. However, he never put his signature on the fairy tales...
This is the story of Charles Perrault in a nutshell. What about his fairy tales?
His first poetic fairy tale, “Griselda,” was published in 1691 and members of the French Academy were the first to hear it. This is how the fairy tale begins to make its way into high society. Not a courtly and gallant story, not a love anecdote, but a fairy tale in the sense of the word that readers of later times are accustomed to putting into it.
Mother Goose's Tales appears four years later, on October 28, 1696. The full title of the collection: “Tales of My Mother Goose, or Stories and Tales of Bygone Times with Teachings.” The book was inexpensively published, with simple illustrations, and sold out 20, 30, and sometimes 50 copies a day. The reason for this was not only that these magical stories were well known to both commoners and nobles, but also that these tales were modernized as much as possible and reflected not only ancient legends, but also contemporary to the writer customs and morals.
So, "Sleeping Beauty". We all remember well the story of how three fairies came to the christening of a young princess, one of whom was missing a golden device. It is interesting that modern researchers indicate a specific place where these fabulous events could take place. This is the castle of Usset, located on the banks of the Loire
The differences between the French and German canons do not end there. For example, in Grimm’s version, after the princess’s ill-fated injection, all the inhabitants of the kingdom fall asleep, while in Perrault’s the king and queen, as befits responsible royalty, continue to stay awake, although, naturally, they do not live to see their daughter awaken.
In addition, Monsieur Charles’s goal was a kind of promotion of folklore subjects among the nobility, so he diligently cleared them of everything coarse and vulgar, stylized them as courtly literature and filled them with signs of his time. The characters' manners, clothing and meals perfectly reflected the nobility of the 17th century.
Yes, in "Sleeping Beauty" The cannibal demands to serve her children's meat invariably “with Robber sauce”; the prince, who woke up the beauty, notices that she is dressed in an old-fashioned way (“her collar is upright”), and the awakened woman herself addresses the prince in the tone of a languid, capricious lady (“Oh, is it you, prince? You kept yourself waiting”).
By the way, few people remember that Perrault's prince did not at all rush to kiss vulgarly. Having discovered the princess, he “approached her with awe and admiration and knelt down beside her.” And even after waking up, our heroine and her gallant gentleman did nothing reprehensible, but talked about love for four hours until they woke up the whole castle
The very origins of the plot of “The Sleeping Beauty” are lost in the depths of the Middle Ages. One of the oldest adaptations belongs to the Italian Giambattista Basile, who in 1636 published one of the first (although not as epochal as “Tales of Mother Goose…”) collections of fairy tales “Pentameron” (apparently as a response to the famous “Decameron”). Basile's heroine's name is Thalia.
The fairy tale begins quite traditionally - with an evil curse from a witch and a sleeping pill from a spindle. True, they don’t bother much with the princess any further, they put her on the throne and place her in an abandoned forest hut. After a while, as expected, a hunting foreign king stumbles upon the hut, but when he discovers the sleeping beauty, he behaves in a completely uncourtly manner... In fact, the fairy tale says - “he collected the fruits of love” and... drove off home. The beauty quietly became pregnant and, after the due date, gave birth to twins. The magical “anesthesia” turned out to be so strong that she woke up not from giving birth, but only when the baby mistakenly began to suck her finger and the poisoned tip of the spindle popped out. And then the king decided to visit again for the “fruits of love”.
Seeing Talia with the children, he finally... fell in love, and began to visit them more often. And since our hero was a married man, his wife, suspecting treason, caught Thalia with the children and ordered the children to be made into meat cutlets for her husband, and to throw her mistress into the fire. It’s clear that the cook took pity on the kids, slipped the lamb, and in the end, instead of Talia, they burned the evil wife over low heat. Next is the moral: "Some people are always lucky - even when they sleep."
Now it is clear how much Charles Perrault ennobled the fairy tale. The image of an eternally young maiden in lethargic sleep, waiting for her lover, turned out to be so attractive that he constantly wandered through literature in different guises.
It is enough to recall the folk tale "Snow White", "The Sleeping Princess" by V. Zhukovsky, "The Dead Princess and the Seven Knights" by A. Pushkin, the song of the NAUTILUS group "Morning of Polina" and much, much more.
There is a dark entrance under the mountain.
He's heading there quickly.
Before him in the sad darkness,
The crystal coffin is rocking,
And in the crystal coffin
The princess sleeps in eternal sleep."
(A. Pushkin "The Tale of dead princess…")
"...Sleepy eyes are waiting for someone who will come in and turn on the light in them, Polina's morning continues for a hundred billion years... And all these years I hear her chest swaying, And her breath fogged up the glass in the windows, And I don't feel sorry for the fact that my path is endless - It’s always light in her crystal bedroom...” (I. Kormiltsev "Morning of Polina")
Cinderella
The famous shoes in Grimm's version are golden. However, even at Perrault they were at first far from crystal, but trimmed with fur. Some believe that this fur was the famous Russian sable, and in translations they write “sable shoes”. However, it so happened that over time the word "vair" ("fur for edging"), on the principle of a damaged telephone, was transformed into "verre" ("glass"). As a result, comfortable and soft shoes turned into “crystal slippers” that were exquisite to hear, but completely sadistic in practice. Gold ones, however, are not much more convenient.
But Grimm’s motive for Cinderella’s escape from the ball looks much more logical. The beauty here was afraid not of the clock striking, but of the prince’s attempts to find out whose daughter she was. When a messenger with shoes arrives at Cinderella’s family, the mischievous sisters manage to try them on, for which one of them... cuts off her finger, and the second cuts off her heel! However, the deceivers are exposed by two doves singing:
"Look, look,
And the shoe is covered in blood...”
The misadventures of the sisters do not end there. If in Perrault’s courtly narrative Cinderella not only forgives them, but also arranges their personal life (“... she married two noble courtiers”), then among the “populists” Grimm, reprisal against the heroine’s oppressors is inevitable.
“And when the time came to celebrate the wedding, the treacherous sisters also appeared - they wanted to flatter her and share her happiness with her. And when the wedding procession went to church, the eldest turned out to be right hand from the bride, and the youngest to the left; and the doves pecked out one eye of each of them. And then, when they were returning back from church, the eldest walked on the left hand, and the youngest on the right; and the doves pecked out another eye of each of them."
By the way, in recent years information is circulating in the media that the oldest version of Cinderella appeared from the pen Chinese writer 9th century Chuan Chenshi. Like, he has a stepmother, and fur shoes, and an emperor husband as a reward. There is also a miniature leg of the heroine (one of the Chinese canons female beauty) could not have come at a better time.
Be that as it may, “Cinderella” will still be invariably associated with Charles Perrault, just as “Snow White” is with the Brothers Grimm. And for more than three centuries, this seemingly simple story has served as a source of inspiration and consolation for millions of women on planet Earth. In the depths of the soul of each of them lies the hope that they will find their “prince”, despite all life’s troubles.
Information note:
Every adult remembers the magical fairy tales of Charles Perrault from his childhood. Their heroes have passed through the centuries and still remain loved. No inquisitive child will remain indifferent to the story of the sly Puss in Boots, poor Cinderella or the villain Bluebeard. And the slightly modified Little Red Riding Hood is perceived as written in Russia.
Fairy-tale adventures unobtrusively teach children attentiveness and responsibility, and a positive attitude towards life.
Who wrote fairy tales?
The author did not reveal the secret of his magical works to anyone. It is believed that he processed folk tales and published them under the name of his son, because he was afraid of condemnation from high society for such an activity. The second version was the father’s desire to bring his heir to a high position.
The collection was received very well. People liked the language of presentation and the plots so much that the book was literally swept off the shelves. Rave reviews were passed from mouth to mouth. The entire society in the royal palace was also keen on discussing the adventures of fairy-tale heroes.
There were rumors that children's fairy tales were published by Charles Perrault. But in his memoirs, written at the end of his life, he did not mention them at all. Therefore, the question of the authorship of father or son was lost for centuries. Although it was Perrault who began to be considered the founder of children's literature and pedagogy.
Features of Perrault's works
It is impossible to say which fairy tales are the best, because they are all written in the same interesting way. These are real magical stories, but as if from real world. Features of Perrault's stories are the vividness of the plot combined with faith in its possible implementation. Children feel this idea well and immediately rank Perrault’s fairy tales among their favorites.
The list of works is given on the page in alphabetical order. You can read or print any of them for free.
