The Rainbow Fairy Book (Books of Wonder)

The original compilation of traditional stories started in 1890 with The Red Fairy Book. The Rainbow Fairy Book is a compilation of stories from The Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, Pink, Grey, Crimson, Olive and Lilac Fairy books, published from 1890 – 1910. The book is a collection of traditional tales from Hansel and Gretel and Rumpelstiltskin to the lesser know The Story of the Seven Simons and Niels and the Giants. On shortfall of The Rainbow Fairy book is that it does not indicate where each story originated, as in the original compilations, nor does it contain the woodcut illustrations and simple sketches as in the original. After reading the Rainbow Fairy version, I checked out the Pink Fairy book and found a wealth of interesting, entertaining and thought-provoking tales that, without Lang's compilations, might not have been shared outside their original culture. It contains stories from the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson as well as several tales translated from Japanese, Slavic, Swedish, Danish and French. The Pink Fairy Book is a treasure in and of itself – and the Rainbow Fairy Book takes 31 of the most popular stories from 20 years of Lang's work and puts them all in one easy to read anthology. ( )