Great Books of the World
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, history, proverbs, jokes, beliefs, stories, tall tales, and customs included in the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group.
7 titles sorted by popularity
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The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
Howard Pyle
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire is an 1883 novel by the American illustrator and writer Howard Pyle. Consisting of a series of episodes in the story of the English outlaw Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men, the novel compiles traditional material into a coherent narrative in a colorful, invented "old English" idiom that preserves some flavor of the ballads, and adapts it for children. The novel is notable for taking the subject of Robin Hood, which had been increasingly popular through the 19th century, in a new direction that influenced later writers, artists, and filmmakers through the next century.
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The Blue Fairy Book
Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang's Fairy Books—also known as Andrew Lang's "Coloured" Fairy Books or Andrew Lang's Fairy Books of Many Colors—are a series of twelve collections of fairy tales, published between 1889 and 1910. Each volume is distinguished by its own color. In all, 437 tales from a broad range of cultures and countries are presented.
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The Arabian Nights Entertainments
Anonymous
The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night , subtitled A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, is a celebrated English language translation of One Thousand and One Nights – a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age – by the British explorer and Arabist Richard Francis Burton . It stood as the only complete translation of the Macnaghten or Calcutta II edition of the "Arabian Nights" until the Malcolm C. and Ursula Lyons translation in 2008.
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The Aesop for Children
Aesop
Aesop's Fables or the Aesopica is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and story-teller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with Aesop's name have descended to modern times through a number of sources. They continue to be reinterpreted in different verbal registers and in popular as well as artistic mediums.
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Japanese Fairy Tales
Yei Theodora Ozaki
Yei Theodora Ozaki was an early 20th-century translator of Japanese short stories and fairy tales. Her translations were fairly liberal but have been popular, and were reprinted several times after her death.
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Irish Fairy Tales
James Stephens
Irish Fairy Tales is a retelling of ten Irish folktales by the Irish author James Stephens. The English illustrator Arthur Rackham provided interior artwork, including numerous black and white illustrations and sixteen color plates. The stories are set in a wooded, Medieval Ireland filled with larger-than-life hunters, warriors, kings, and fairies. Many stories concern the Fianna and their captain, Fionn mac Uail, from the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology.
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Fifty Famous Stories Retold
James Baldwin
Fifty half-legendary tales of either heroes, famous men, or relating the history of a people. Some have slight historical value, some relate great moral truths, while others are intended only to amuse the reader.