The Tale of Tales

The name of Giambattista Basile (1583–1632), the author of «The Tale of Tales», has only recently become known to the Russian-speaking reader, and yet the stories of Basile are fairly familiar — in the adaptations by Charles Perrault, Carlo Gozzi... and the Brothers Grimm. However, the Neapolitan author often gives these wandering plots a completely unexpected hue: here, Cinderella can put up a worthy resistance to her stepmother, and Sleeping Beauty behaves far from well after awakening... Frivolous and even cruel plots, the interference of fairies and ogres, characters who do not shy away from using strong language, the fervor of youth and the despair of old age, moral lessons and adventures — all this is packed into a five-day fairy tale marathon, comprising fifty entertaining and instructive stories (hence another title of the book — «Pentamerone», «five-day diary»). The edition is illustrated with the works of the English artist Warwick Goble.