Tale of Tales

The name Giambattista Basile (1566–1632), the author of «Tale of Tales», has only recently become known to the Russian-speaking reader, and yet the stories of Basile are quite familiar to him — in the retelling of Charles Perrault, Carlo Gozzi,... and the Brothers Grimm. However, in the hands of the Neapolitan author, these wandering plots often take on quite unexpected hues: here, Cinderella is capable of giving a worthy rebuttal to her stepmother, and Sleeping Beauty behaves far from her best after awakening... Frivolous and even cruel plots, the interference of fairies and ogres, characters who do not hold back their words, the ardor of youth and the gloom of old age, admonitions and adventures — all this fits into a five-day fairy tale marathon, into fifty captivating and instructive stories (hence another name for the book — «Pentameron», «five-day diary»).