The Selected Children's Fictions, Folk Tales and Fairy Tales of Andrew Lang

Book excerpt: The first critical edition of Andrew Lang's influential writing for children This exciting scholarly edition highlights the importance of Lang's contributions to Victorian and Edwardian children's literature and fantasy. It repositions his children's fictions as works that have helped shape twentieth- and twenty-first-century approaches to writing for children and that anticipate experimental approaches to folk narrative and fairy tale in modern literature. Included in this edition are: Lang's children's novels The Gold of Fairnilee, Prince Prigio and Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia; his picture-book story The Princess Nobody; the Scottish folk tales collected by Lang in the 1860s and reworked in successive republications throughout his career; and a selection of the tales Lang wrote for inclusion in the anthologies The Blue Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book and Tales of Troy and Greece. This edition also features extensive critical materials designed to help the reader understand the context, the social significance, and the textual history of these fictions. Andrew Teverson is Dean of Academic Strategy and Professor of Cultural History and Critical Thinking at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London.