The Essentials Of Magical Fairy Tale Books For Adults

Most children in Western society can name one or more stories featuring magic, fairies, wizards or witches. As they grow older, these enchanted worlds make way for reality, which is usually not ne...

Most children in Western society can name one or more stories featuring magic, fairies, wizards or witches. As they grow older, these enchanted worlds make way for reality, which is usually not nearly as interesting. However, with fairy tale books for adults it's possible to escape back to that magical world of childhood, but with a more grown-up flavor.

Probably the most famous stories in the genre are those collected in the early 19th century by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. When you read the original versions of stories like 'Snow White', 'Rapunzel' and 'Cinderella', however, you quickly realize that they were actually more suited to adults than to children, especially due to the levels of violence. In fact, the brothers warned parents to rather read their children more age-appropriate works.

Another classic collection of stories more suited to adults when you read them in their original form are 'One Thousand and One Nights', also known as 'The Arabian Nights' Entertainment'. Suspense, mystery, romance, satire, comedy and even erotica combine to create a fascinating portrait of cities like Baghdad in the Middle Ages. Add to that elements like wizards, djinns and flying carpets and you have the perfect recipe for fairy tales that will entertain grown-ups.

A well-known story that intentionally started out as a children's tale is 'The Lord of the Rings'. J. R. R. Tolkien found, however, that as he continued writing his epic novel, it became quite dark. It ended up becoming a book for older readers instead and apart from inspiring many other writers and being adapted into an acclaimed trilogy of films, only one other book in history sold more copies.

Someone whose work is definitely more suited to grown-ups is the contemporary author Neil Gaiman. His novel 'Stardust' was adapted into a very successful film and features a land known as 'Faerie'. Gaiman has won many awards for his writing, including one for an early work that featured in a 'The Sandman' graphic novel. 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' is about the first performance of Shakespeare's eponymous play. According to this story, the audience consisted of fairies and hobgoblins, among them the 'real' Oberon, Tatiana and Puck.

Bestselling author Terry Pratchett created the hilarious Discworld series. Pratchett's imaginary world features a population of humans living among creatures like dwarfs, wizards, witches, trolls, elves, fairies, vampires and werewolves. The social commentary is witty and scathing and Pratchett often uses existing stories like 'Cinderella' or the plays of Shakespeare and Chekhov as inspiration.

If you're looking for more authors with works in the genre, you may want to include William Morris or A. S. Byatt. There is an abundance of contemporary works too and often these are written with a particular type of reader in mind. Feminists, gay men, Manga fans and lovers of romance and erotic novels are some readers who'll find fairy tale books just for them.

The variety of works means that it's fairly simple to track down fairy tale books for adults. A quick online search will help you get started. Your local library or bookstore should also have several offerings, usually filed under 'fantasy'.

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