The success attending the publication of a new translation of the
Fairy Tales of the Countess d'Aulnoy has justified the publishers in
believing that an equally faithful version of some of the most popular
stories of her contemporaries and immediate successors, similarly
annotated, might meet with as favourable a reception. I have therefore
selected twenty-four of the best Fairy Tales, according to my judgment,
remaining in the _Cabinet des Fées_, commencing with those of Charles
Perrault, the earliest, and terminating with some of Madame Leprince
de Beaumont, the latest French writer of European celebrity in that
particular class of literature. Independently of the fact that, with
the exception of those of Madame de Beaumont, few if any in the present
volume have ever been placed in their integrity before the English
reader, I trust that the chronological order I have observed in their
arrangement will give them a novel interest in the eyes of those
"children of a larger growth," who are not ashamed to confess, with La
Fontaine--
Si "_Peau d'ane_" m'étoit conté
J'y prendrais un plaisir extrême.