The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales

A rare discovery in the world of fairy tales--now for the first time in English

Move over, Cinderella: Make way for the Turnip Princess! And for the "Cinderfellas" in these stories, which turn our understanding of gender in fairy tales on its head.

With this volume, the holy trinity of fairy tales--the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, and Hans Christian Andersen--becomes a quartet. In the 1850s, Franz Xaver von Schönwerth traversed the forests, lowlands, and mountains of northern Bavaria to record fairy tales, gaining the admiration of even the Brothers Grimm. Most of Schönwerth's work was lost--until a few years ago, when thirty boxes of manu­scripts were uncovered in a German municipal archive. Now, for the first time, Schönwerth's lost fairy tales are available in English. Violent, dark, and full of action, and upending the relationship between damsels in distress and their dragon-slaying heroes, these more than seventy stories bring us closer than ever to the unadorned oral tradition in which fairy tales are rooted, revolutionizing our understanding of a hallowed genre.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author: Franz Xaver Von Schonwerth
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Published: 02/24/2015
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.48lbs
Size: 7.70h x 5.00w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780143107422


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 03/01/2015 pg. 89
New York Review of Books 07/09/2015 pg. 65

About the Author
Franz Xaver von Schönwerth (1810-1886) had a successful career in law and the Bavarian royal court before devoting himself full-time to cataloging the customs and folktales of his homeland.

Erika Eichenseer (editor) is the director of the Franz Xaver von Schönwerth Society. She lives in Germany.

Maria Tatar (translator and introducer) is the John L. Loeb Professor of Folklore and Mythology and Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Engelbert Süss (illustrations) is a sculptor, glass-artist, and illustrator. He created the bronze statue King of Dwarfs for the Schönwerth Fairytale Path in Sinzing, Bavaria.