The Robber Bridegroom (1942)

A delightful mix of Mississippi folk heroes and borrowings from the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales. The tales Welty borrows from are "The Robber Bridegroom," "The Goose Girl," "Little Snow-white," "Cinderella,"Rumplestiltskin,” “The Fisherman and His Wife,” and “Rapunzel.” A must read for fairy tale lovers. ( )

A strange little fairy tale with some frontier reality thrown in just to make a nice mix.
The story begins bigger than life when the father of the 'Cinderella' character buys a night's sleep (?) in a hotel/hostel. Two other men come in and play/fight most of the night. By morning the instigator is gone and the room is trashed. The father invites the 2nd man to come to his home for a meal and the dude hesitatingly accepts.
The 2nd man unbeknownst to the father is a highwayman come robber and eventually steals away the father's lovely daughter. I will leave you to fill in the rest.
I loved this little story. Eudora Welty has such a way with words that she could make 'Dick and Jane' into a wonderful story.
I highly recommend it and gave it 4 1/2 stars out of 5. ( )

The Robber Bridegroom retells the classic fairy tale of the same name, though this time set in Mississippi during its early frontier days. Apparently, it features some legendary local characters (i.e. Clement Musgrove, Jamie Lockhart), none of which were familiar to me. Whether my enjoyment of the story suffered because of my ignorance in this matter I cannot say. Clement has a beautiful daughter, who is stolen away by the bandit Jamie, aided by the nefarious acts of Clement's evil second wife, who is jealous of his daughter.

The story is an interesting mix of frontier legend and fairy tale, but prose read like a fairy tale, with a kind of cadence that I enjoyed:

"Ho! Ho! Said the other, and taking off his red shirt and filling his bristling chest with a breath of fresh air, he seized the other's own jug and finished it off. Then, sailing his cap into the air, he gave a whistle and a shake and declared that he was none other than Mike Fink, champion of all the flatboat bullies on the Mississippi River, and ready for anything."

An easy, short read, the book is very witty and yet oddly disturbing in places. (2/13/12) ( )

What a treat this little book is! An adult fairy tale with a twist, Welty, inspired (I assume) somewhat not only by her homeland, but by the Brothers Grimm themselves, tells the tale of Jamie Lockhart; a charismatic outlaw terrorising the population of deepest darkest Mississpi with his band of thieves, and Rosamund Musgrow; a completely innocent and utterly stupid young woman who wanders the countryside in her expensive silk gown, blissfully unaware of her evil stepmothers' burning desire to get rid of her for good. Stepmothers do get a bad press in fairy tales don't they?

Against an atmospheric backdrop populated by legendary figures from the place and period, Jamie Lockhart claims Rosamund as his own (quite literally) and whisks her off into the sunset to live as his 'robber bride'. This is a dark, poetic and completely unreal short(ish) story, written in an authentic voice and chock full of twists, turns and tricks. Drawing inspiration from traditions and tales far older than herself, Welty has written something truly unique. Something I rarely stumble across nowadays...

http://relishreads.blogspot.com/ ( )

A pleasurable read. One should not come from something heavy to this without a pause in between, as this is a delightful sugar plum fairy tale of true love and wicked stepmother, and is appropriate from six years old on up. The structure and writing is flawless and the only reason I didn't give it five stars is it IS a piece of fluff and just too, too, sugary. ( )