The Orange Fairy Book: Complete and Unabridged, Every Word, Every One of the Illustrations

I love the Color Fairy Books edited by Andrew Lang. I read through the library collection in a few weeks when I was a kid. When I encountered the Orange Fairy Book at a used book sale, I immediately bought it.

So on the review - I read a few of these stories at night before bed. They are as great as I remember them. These stories were all new to me, with the exception of the Ugly Duckling. Some were better than others, but all were fun to read. This is a collection of fairy tales from around the world. From Africa to the American Indians, with many stories from Old World Europe.

Fun to read, easy tales to read before bed. Completely recommended.

This book is well into the series, but for me this is my first of Andrew Lang's Coloured Fairy Books. (10th in the series) The stories were a mixed bag, some were decent but a lot felt repetitive, and some simply have not aged well. Still, Lang did pull together a diverse collection of stories. Overall rating is 3.5/5 stars and I liked the illustrations of this one.

Below are reviews for the stories in this book that for whatever reason do not have their own entries here on GR. Each has been given its own star rating.

The Goldsmith's Fortune - The goldsmith's fortune is a bit of a weird tale, not a very good moral example but can be amusing to older readers as a kind of dark humor. A goldsmith comes home to find his wife murdered, and the show more clever bastard finds a way to profit off it. I mean... yeah ok he did not kill his wife, he's actually innocent, but his ruse in making some profit off his wife's death caused the murder of a bunch of other wives, so... o_o ***

The Foolish Weaver - Holy shit, are these weavers fucking dumbshits. No, really. **

The clever cat - The wife of the hero is a dumb shit who can't keep her promises. Thank goodness the hero had a different sort of pussy that actually took care of him. ***

Tale of manus pinkel the thief - A unlikeable "hero". *

The Adventures of the Jackal's Eldest Son - Part of this story reminds me of the Aesop's fable with the lion, fox, and jackass, in which the lion gets pissed if he doesn't get the largest share. The Jackal's son prides himself on his cleverness but it comes back to bite his ass in the end. ***

The Adventures of the Younger Son of the Jackal - Cleverness might run in the family, but if you use cleverness to abuse others, don't complain when others turn on you. ***

The Rover of the Plain - You dumb bitch, this is what happens when you lie to your husband and mistreat your loyal animal. **

The white doe - Like Sleeping Beauty, a innocent princess is cursed by a grumpy fairy. A lot of woe could have been avoided here with open communication. **

The girl-fish - A lazy, vain bitch is punished for mocking other people and not heeding warnings. She learned her lesson in the end, I guess? ***

The Adventures of Covan the Brown-haired - Pretty typical hero saves his family fare. **

The Owl and the Eagle - Owl and Eagle are friends. They find two women to marry. The eagle's wife gives birth to an eagle. The owl's wife gives birth to a frog. No accusations or drama ensues from this so maybe the owl and his wife had a 3way with a frog, who the hell knows. Later on, the birds go out hunting and are captured by an evil witch, so the wives and their kiddos have to go rescue the birds. The whole thing is just weird. **

The Frog and the Lion Fairy - Nonsense. Now, the Orange Fairy Book was well into the series and I can see that the author was running out of good stories, but this one was just fucking stupid and the plot devices made no sense. *

The Bird of Truth - This is a pretty weird story about orphans who find out they're actually a prince and princess. ***

Adventures of an Indian Brave - Nowadays, Indian is no longer the politically correct appellation for indigenous people of North America/the Caribbean. The story itself was meh. ***

The Princess Bella-Flor - Again, a princess is seen as an object to be attained. And again, kindness to animals brings good karma. ***

How the Stalos were Tricked - Meeeeeeeeeeeeh. IDK if i'm just tired of the Orange Fairy book at this point, but this story was really meh compared to most of the others. **

Andras Baive - Didn't leave much of an impression on me, what I remember as I am writing this right now is two guys in a jumping contest. I guess by the tenth book of this series the Langs were running out of decent stories. *

The Magic Book - Very unlikeable hero, like a couple of the other "heroes" in this collection, the so-called protagonist goes back on a deal he made with a old man (a very easy deal for the young man) Granted, the young man does use his stolen goods to help his parents, but he also cons some innocent people and gets a princess in the end. **

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"The Story of the Hero Makoma"
"The Magic Mirror"
"Story of the King who would see Paradise"
"How Isuro the Rabbit tricked Gudu"
"Ian, the Soldier's Son"
"The Fox and the Wolf"
"How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon"
"The Ugly Duckling"
"The Two Caskets"
"The Goldsmith's Fortune"
"The Enchanted Wreath"
"The Foolish Weaver"
"The Clever Cat"
"The Story of Manus Pinkel the Thief"
"The Adventures of a Jackal"
"The Adventures of the Jackal's Eldest Son"
"The Adventures of the Younger Son of the Jackal"
"The Three Treasures of the Giants"
"The Rover of the Plain"
"The White Doe"
"The Girl-Fish"
"The Owl and the Eagle"
"The Frog and the Lion Fairy"
"The Adventures of Covan the Brown-haired"
"The Princess Bella-Flor"
"The Bird of Truth"
"The Mink and the Wolf"
"Adventures of an Indian Brave"
"How the Stalos were Tricked"
"Andras Baive"
"The White Slipper"
"The Magic Book" show less

R. and I had better luck with this one than the blue fairy book, although as with any of these there's a wide range of tales.

To avoid overabundance of information re persons responsible for translations and/or adaptation, please refer to Lang's Preface. Unabridged Replication of Longman & Green's 1906 edition.

Contents: "The Story of the Hero Makoma", "The Magic Mirror", "Story of the King who would see Paradise", "How Isuro the Rabbit tricked Gudu", "Ian, the Soldier's Son", "The Fox and the Wolf", "How Ian Direach got the Blue Falcon", "The Ugly Duckling", "The Two Caskets", "The Goldsmith's Fortune", "The Enchanted Wreath", "The Foolish Weaver", "The Clever Cat", "The Story of Manus Pinkel the Thief", "The Adventures of a Jackal", "The Adventures of the Jackal's Eldest Son", "The Adventures of the Younger Son of the Jackal", "The Three Treasures of the show more Giants", "The Rover of the Plain", "The White Doe", "The Girl-Fish", "The Owl and the Eagle",
"The Frog and the Lion Fairy", "The Adventures of Covan the Brown-haired", "The Princess Bella-Flor", "The Bird of Truth". "The Mink and the Wolf". "Adventures of an Indian Brave",
"How the Stalos were Tricked", "Andras Baive", "The White Slipper", "The Magic Book" show less

This is Book 10 of the Andrew Lang Color Fairy Tale Series

Includes 33 tales from Jutland, Rhodesia, Uganda, and various other European traditions Source: Wikipedia