Miracles of Love
French Fairy Tales by Women
- Editor: Nora Martin Peterson
- Translator: Jordan Stump
- Pages: 280
- Published: 2022
- ISBN: 9781603295741 (Paperback)
“This anthology focuses on questions related to love and how tales by the conteuses challenge contemporary Disneyfied conceptions filled with good fairies, innocent romance, and happy endings.”
—Journal of American Folklore
Before children’s stories came to exemplify the French fairy tale, early modern audiences read the works of women writers known as conteuses. From the late seventeenth century through the Revolution, the conteuses published rich, complex tales that were popular in literary salons and elite courtly settings.
These unpredictable works feature candid representations of female desire, strong support for the education of women, and surprising twists on the fairy tale formulas familiar to readers of Charles Perrault. Not only witty and entertaining, the tales also comment on the unfair treatment of women that the authors saw in society, history, and myth.
Brief biographies introduce to new audiences writers who challenged social conventions, won popular and critical acclaim, and defined the fairy tale genre in their own time.
“The edition and translation are laudable and compelling and will be readily adopted in a range of courses in literature, folklore, and gender studies.”
—Lewis Seifert, Brown University
