Substance: Zipes is a leading scholar of fairy tales; this book collects several of his forewords and essays about the genre, its originating authors, and other analysts. (see COMMENTS for the list of authors).
Useful for the history of tales that are popularly understood to be from the 'folk tradition', but which are actually derived from a literary source (e.g. 'Beauty and the Beast'), and for the contemporary state of the discussion among 'experts'; however, the overview format assumes the reader already knows the tales.
I take issue with his underlying assumption that the cynical, socially rebellious, and sometimes sadomasochistic French literary novels are somehow superior to their 'conventionalized' descendants (Disney is particularly derided, without evidence, as 'saccharine and sexist'; IMO the first three adaptations, in particular, are anything but).
The chapter on Hans Christian Andersen does contain detailed analyses of the underlying works, but is heavily dependent on theoretical psychology to justify making assumptions about Andersen's internal motivations (which doesn't mean the analysis is wrong, but it does require accepting the psych-tropes as meaningful).
Style: Generally readable by the layman, with some unavoidable jargon and references. ( )