The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Yellow Fairy Book, by Various

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Title: The Yellow Fairy Book

Author: Various

Editor: Andrew Lang

Release Date: August, 1996 [Etext #640]
Posting Date: November 30, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YELLOW FAIRY BOOK ***

Produced by Charles Keller for Tina

THE YELLOW FAIRY BOOK

By Various

Edited By Andrew Lang

Dedication

TO

JOAN, TODDLES, AND TINY

Books Yellow, Red, and Green and Blue,
All true, or just as good as true,
And here's the Yellow Book for YOU!

Hard is the path from A to Z,
And puzzling to a curly head,
Yet leads to Books--Green, Blue, and Red.

For every child should understand
That letters from the first were planned
To guide us into Fairy Land

So labour at your Alphabet,
For by that learning shall you get
To lands where Fairies may be met.

And going where this pathway goes,
You too, at last, may find, who knows?
The Garden of the Singing Rose.

PREFACE

The Editor thinks that children will readily forgive him for publishing
another Fairy Book. We have had the Blue, the Red, the Green, and here
is the Yellow. If children are pleased, and they are so kind as to say
that they are pleased, the Editor does not care very much for what other
people may say. Now, there is one gentleman who seems to think that it
is not quite right to print so many fairy tales, with pictures, and to
publish them in red and blue covers. He is named Mr. G. Laurence Gomme,
and he is president of a learned body called the Folk Lore Society. Once
a year he makes his address to his subjects, of whom the Editor is one,
and Mr. Joseph Jacobs (who has published many delightful fairy tales
with pretty pictures)(1) is another. Fancy, then, the dismay of Mr.
Jacobs, and of the Editor, when they heard their president say that he
did not think it very nice in them to publish fairy books, above all,
red, green, and blue fairy books! They said that they did not see any
harm in it, and they were ready to 'put themselves on their country,'
and be tried by a jury of children. And, indeed, they still see no harm
in