Posts by Pamela
Fairy Tales, Pt. 4 Madame d’Aulnoy Coins the Term “contés de fees”(fairy tales)
As best I can tell, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness[1] d’Aulnoy (1652-1705) led a wild life. At the age of 13, she was married to the Baron d’Aulnoy, who was a “freethinker,”[2] a gambler, and thirty years her senior. Three years and three children later, her husband was accused of treason. The accusations were…
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Overwhelmed and Very Grateful
As I write this, I am sitting in a hotel in Miami. I spent yesterday at the Miami Book Fair, where I spoke about Sigrid Schultz, signed books, attended a couple of panels, navigated crowds, and listened to some wonderful music. It’s been exciting, humbling, nerve-wracking, and exhausting.[1] In a couple of hours I will…
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From the Archives: Marina Warner’s Stranger Magic (aka Fairy Tales, Pt. 3)
While I was checking the archives to be sure that I hadn’t previously written about Antoine Galland’s Thousand and One Nights, I ran across this review from 2012, which led me to pull Stranger Magic off the shelves and dive in. *** I’m fascinated by the Arabian Nights. By the stories themselves and the way they…
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