Who were the Fairy Tellers?
In this far-ranging quest, award-winning author Nicholas Jubber unearths the lives of the dreamers who made our most beloved fairy tales: inventors, thieves, rebels and forgotten geniuses who gave us classic tales such as Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Beauty and the Beast and Baba Yaga.
From the Middle Ages to the birth of modern children’s literature, they include a German apothecary’s daughter, a Syrian youth running away from a career in the souk and a Russian dissident embroiled in a plot to kill the Tsar.
Following these and other unlikely protagonists, we travel from the steaming cities of Italy and the Levant, under the dark branches of the Black Forest, deep into the tundra of Siberia and across the snowy fells of Lapland. In the process, we discover a fresh perspective on some of our most frequently told stories.
Filled with adventure, tragedy and real-world magic, this book uncovers the stranger lives behind the strangest of tales.
The Fairy Tellers by Nicholas Jubber is published in paperback on 18 August, 2022.
Read Nicholas’s feature about the storyteller who first wrote down Cinderella and Rapunzel, The Fairy (tale) Godfather, Giambattista Basile.
