The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old-Time Stories, by Charles Perrault

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Title: Old-Time Stories

Author: Charles Perrault

Illustrator: W. Heath Robinson

Translator: A. E. Johnson

Release Date: February 27, 2010 [EBook #31431]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: Decoration]

OLD-TIME STORIES

[Illustration: "THEY REACHED THE HOUSE WHERE THE LIGHT WAS BURNING."]

OLD-TIME STORIES

_told by_

MASTER CHARLES PERRAULT

_translated from
the French by
A.E.Johnson
with illustrations
by_

W.HEATH ROBINSON

[Illustration: Decoration]

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

_First Published, 1921_

_Printed in Great Britain_

PREFATORY NOTE

Of the eleven tales which the present volume comprises, the first eight
are from the master-hand of Charles Perrault. Charles Perrault
(1628-1703) enjoyed much distinction in his day, and is familiar to
students of French literature for the prominent part that he played in
the famous _Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns_, which so keenly
occupied French men of letters in the latter part of the seventeenth
century. But his fame to-day rests upon his authorship of the
traditional _Tales of Mother Goose; or Stories of Olden Times_, and so
long as there are children to listen spellbound to the adventures of
Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, and that arch rogue Puss in Boots, his
memory will endure.

To the eight tales of Perrault three others have been added here.
'Beauty and the Beast,' by Mme Leprince de Beaumont (1711-1781), has a
celebrity which warrants its inclusion, however inferior it may seem, as
an example of the story-teller's art, to the masterpieces of Perrault.
'Princess Rosette' and 'The Friendly Frog' are from the prolific pen of
Mme d'Aulnoy (1650-1705), a contemporary of Perrault, whom she could
sometimes rival in invention, if never in dramatic power.