Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection

The Grimm Stuff Exhibition

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GRIMM STUFF: FOLK TALES AND FAIRY STORIES

This exhibition encompasses folk and fairy tales – which may or may not include fairies or magic but are usually set in some place distant in time - and fairy and flower-fairy stories, which usually do at least contain creatures we recognise as fairies or goblins.

Most of the fairy stories gathered together by re-tellers such as Madame d’Aulnoy and Charles (or perhaps his son Pierre) Perrault in the late seventeenth century, and the Grimm Brothers in the nineteenth century, had their origins as folktales - tales or stories that are part of the oral tradition of a people or a place.

Most events in fairy tales are remarkable for their unpleasantness, and in some of the tales there is no happy ending, not even the hero or heroine escaping with their life. Many of the violent or bawdy early versions are quite shocking to the modern reader, accustomed to some of the softer re-tellings. Being awakened from a hundred-year sleep or transforming a frog into a prince by a kiss was acceptable, even in Victorian times. In some early versions the kiss is a rape and the wedding follows in haste so that any baby is not born too close to the wedding date.

By writing the stories down, sometimes combining details of several versions, d’Aulnoy, Perrault, the Grimm Brothers and their ilk popularised a particular version over variants. However, variant versions still abound and each generation of illustrators, from Victorian times to the present, has been inspired to present their own interpretation of traditional tales. This exhibition showcases a small selection of the versions held by the National Library of New Zealand.

Hans Christian Andersen differed from d’Aulnoy, Perrault and the Grimm Brothers by (mostly) creating his own original stories in the fairy story tradition rather than collecting existing tales.

For those seeking a brief, eloquent, authoritative introduction to the most famous fairy stories, it is hard to go past the Introduction in The classic fairy tales by Iona and Peter Opie. (London: Oxford University Press, 1974.)

All books in this exhibition are from the Dorothy Neal White Collection (children’s books published before 1940) or the National Children’s Collection (children’s books published after 1940).

Lynne Jackett

Dorothy Neal White &

National Children’s Collection Research Librarian

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Below Lynne Jackett welcomes guests to an earlier exhibition 'Grimm Stuff'

Contacts

Your comments or questions about the Society, the Collection, and this website are welcome
Enquiries about membership of the Friends may be directed to the Secretary, Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection
P0 Box 12-499, Thorndon, Wellington.
Membership form

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A work in progress but the text is valuable so is made available pending correction and picture addition.

Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)
Edmund Dulac 1882 – 1953 The Nightingale
Stories from Hans Andersen c
William Heath Robinson 1872-1944 Title page
Hans Andersen’s fairy tales c
Ernest H. Shepard 1879-1976 Cover
Hans Andersen’s fairy tales c
Mabel Lucie Attwell 1879-1964 The ugly duckling
The wild swans and other stories c
Kay Nielsen 1886-1957 The hardy tin soldier
Fairytales c
Reginald (Rex) John Whistler 1905-1944 The Emperor’s new clothes
Fairy tales and legends c
Lisbeth Zwerger 1954- The Emperor’s new clothes
Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales c
Edward Ardizzone 1900-1979 The tinder box
Ardizzone’s Hans Andersen : fourteen classic tales c
Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859) Grimm
Leonard Leslie Brooke 1862-1940 Cover
The story of the three little pigs c
Maurice Sendak (1928-) Hansel and Gretel
The juniper tree, and other tales from Grimm. c
Wanda Gag (1893-1946) Title page and frontispiece
Tales from Grimm c
Arthur Rackham 1867 – 1939 Red Riding Hood and The goose girl
Once upon a time: the fairy-tale world of Arthur Rackham c
Grimm’s fairy tales : twenty stories c
Walter Crane 1845-1915 The mouse, the bird and the sausage
Household stories : from the collection of the Bros. Grimm c
George Cruikshank 1792-1878 Rumpelstiltskin
Grimm’s folk tales c
Michael Foreman 1938- Fitcher’s bird
Popular folk tales c
Mervyn Peake 1911-1968 Snow White
Household tales c

Cinderella

Edmund Dulac 1882 – 1953 c
Jan Pieńkowski 1936-
Cinderella c
Gustav Doré 1832-1883
Perrault’s fairy tales c
Arthur Rackham 1867 – 1939
Cinderella c
Janet Ahlberg 1944-1997
The Cinderella show c
Flower Fairies h
Cicely Mary Barker 1895-1973
Flower fairies of the summer : poems and pictures c
Flower songs of the seasons c
May Gibbs 1877-1969
Snugglepot and Cuddlepie : their adventures wonderful c
Trevor Lloyd 1863-1937
Piccaninnies c
Avis Acres 1910-1994
The adventures of Hutu and Kawa c
Fairy Books h
Henry Justice Ford 1860-1941
The green fairy book Cover c
Arthur Rackham 1867 – 1939
The Arthur Rackham fairy book : a book of old favourites with new illustrations Blue Beard c
Harold Gaze 1885-1962
The merry piper, or, The magical trip of the sugar bowl ship Endpapers c
Leonard Leslie Brooke 1862-1940
Brownies and rose-leaves Title page c
Mabel Lucie Attwell 1879-1964
Fairy stories Cover c
Gavin Bishop (1946-)
The house that Jack built
Riding the waves
Riding the waves : four Māori myths c
Weaving earth and sky
Weaving earth and sky : myths & legends of Aotearoa c
Australian fairy tales c
Robert Atkinson 1863-1896
Māori tales & legends c
Anthony Browne 1946-
Hansel and Gretel c
James Marshall 1942-1992
Red Riding Hood c
Richard Doyle 1824-1883
In fairyland : a series of pictures from the elf-world c
Ed Young 1931-
Seven blind mice
Quentin Blake 1932-
Roald Dahl’s Revolting rhymes c
Gavin Bishop 1964-
Chicken Licken c
The three billy-goats Gruff c
Lois Ehlert 1934-
Moon rope : a Peruvian folktale = Un lazo a la luna : una leyenda peruana c
Fred Marcellino 1939-2001
Puss in boots c
Mini Grey
The pea and the princess c

Folk tales from around the world h
Congo, Africa Bantu tales c
The rainbow serpent (Australian Aboriginal) - Folk tales and fables of
the world c
Nigeria, Africa Why the sky is far away : a folktale from Nigeria c
The giants of St Michael’s Mount, Cornwall, England Michael
Foreman’s world of fairy tales c
South America Love and roast chicken : a trickster tale from the Andes Mountains c
The talking mule, African American, USA The Andersen book of American folk tales & songs c
India Hanuman c
The seven Swabians, Germany Eric Carle’s treasury of classic stories for children c
Maurice Sendak
Zlateh the goat Cover illustration c
The grandmother’s tale c
Zlateh the goat : and other stories
Avis Acres Hutu and Kawa c
Gavin Bishop 2 illustrations from Riding the waves c