The Queen of the Fays

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Stories by Catherine Bernard, Francois Fenelon, Louis de Mailly and Jean de Prechac.

This volume includes three tales by Catherine Bernard (1662-1712), one of the originators of contes de fees, that deliberately subvert not merely their narrative strategy, but also their entire mythology; two enigmatic allegories of French history as seen through the prism of faerie by Jean de Prechac (1647-1720); four stories by Francois Fenelon (1651-1715), and The Illustrious Fays, a collection of tales by Chevalier de Mailly (1657-1724), which shows how the contes de fees quickly became suited to very different narrative purposes.

The variety embraced by these stories is a striking illustration of the versatility of a format that seemed, at first, to be rather narrow. If some of stories seem more stereotyped and less ambitious, the spectrum they display is not lacking in color and variety, and the more flamboyant of them make significant additions to the imagery assembled by the core writers of the original school.