The Rose & the Ring

Sometimes I'm really sad that I'm an adult. When I was a child, I read an excerpt from this fairy tale and loved it. When I was a young adult in library school I saw that I had read only a excerpt and went in search of the entire book. That being in the dark ages before Amazon, it took me several decades to find the book. And, now, alas, after trying twice, I've found it unreadable. The character I really liked only appears in chapter 4. The rest of the characters are drawn to make moral points. The anti-drinking, dancing and card playing messages are ubiquitous. The story is long and it's rather clear how it will come out. So I've passed my copy on to someone younger who can overlook it's faults and still appreciate it. If only I'd had show more the whole book when I was twelve. show less

This is a short, silly story about two kingdoms called Paflagonia and Crim Tartary, and the dealings of the Fairy Blackstick, who decrees that the best thing for two royal babies in these realms is for them to experience a bit of misfortune. There are cases of mistaken identity, wicked characters who receive their just deserts eventually, and some very silly character names. The story is told with arch narration and is amusing enough. I’m not sure how much of it will stick with me, but it’s certainly worth trying out if you like that sort of old-fashioned story.

A delightful fairytale parody. You have the usual suspects, fairy-godmothers, princes and princesses, magic etc. But it doesn't take itself seriously and even critiques the fairytale tropes a bit.
Not much else to say other than it ended on a particularly high note which was great as so many things i read tend to fall down a bit during the finale.

I've given this four stars based on its potential, which I missed out on due to listening to the Librivox audiobook instead of reading the text with illustrations.
I would love to find an illustrated hardcopy one day. It's the sort of book that begs to be presented as a glossy hardcover. I enjoyed all the nonsense of this story, and wish that I had a better understanding of the times in which it was written. And I'd love to have some children to read it to (mine are sadly all grown up). This actually says a lot about the book, as I'm not a fan of fairy tales. But this was too much fun to resist.

One of my favorite books when young and one I still like -- I bought this papernback after mislaying the hardback I had as a child, which I later discovered. I loved the names of the characters --especially the gallant Captain of the Guard, Kutasoff Hedzoff, and enjoyed the complexity of the plot, in which the magic rose and ring (which make their possessors the most desirable people) are exchanged among several characters with extraordinary results, and the Fairy Blackstick sees to it that the hero and heroine benefit by a little misfortune, and then end happily ever after, and everyone else gets his/her just rewards, from the usurping kings Valoroso and Padilla down to the footman's odious wife Barbara Griselda Gruffanuff.

Thackeray's Christmas pantomime for children follows the general tropes of other books of this ilk written in the 1800s: there's silliness for the kiddos, but it's also filled with social and political quips clearly intended for adults. Neither have aged well and the whole thing just didn't land for me. I think I have a low tolerance for this particular genre: the plot is flimsy, and the feeling that the author/narrator is constantly wink-winking and nudge-nudging you with his jokes becomes tiresome fairly quickly. *shrug*

According to the author's introduction, this was intended to be put on as a dramatic presentation, or pantomime, at Christmastime, for children.

It was indeed published at Christmas (1854), but I'm not at all convinced that the main intended audience was children. This is, technically, a fairy tale, but it's mainly a political and social satire, caricaturing the events and personalities of the day. I'm quite certain that quite a lot of the humor flew past me, but it seems that it was quite timely.

The titular rose and ring are magical objects that makes the bearer seem irresistibly beautiful to those around them. They originate with the Fairy Blackstick, who is quite unpopular after wishing some infants 'misfortune' at their christenings, show more rather than magical blessings. However, sometimes a bit of misfortune is good for the character.

The plot is a rather slapstick romantic comedy, with quite a lot of lampooning of the upper crust. It's entertaining - but was probably even funnier 150 years ago. show less