The Origin of the Fays

This title is printed to order. This book may have been self-published. If so, we cannot guarantee the quality of the content. In the main most books will have gone through the editing process however some may not. We therefore suggest that you be aware of this before ordering this book. If in doubt check either the author or publisher’s details as we are unable to accept any returns unless they are faulty. Please contact us if you have any questions.

As the contes de fees suffered a decline in fashionability in the 1750s, they began to rely on hybridization with Oriental and Medieval fantasies. The thirteen stories collected in this volume may be replete with fays, ogres, magic swords and other motifs, but they also revolve around a series of moral dilemmas, provided with fanciful magically-aided resolutions, although reflecting real philosophical debates of the times.

Among the philosophers and free thinkers who made a contribution to the genre and are included in this volume are the renowned Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swedish diplomat Count Carl Gustaf Tessin, Charles Duclos and Francois-Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif two members of the French Academy, and the exiled defrocked nun Marianne-Agnes Falques, who assisted William Beckford on Vathek.