West African Folktales by
Vivid folktales imparting basic life lessons collected over 35 years by a linguist who specialized in the spoken art of Sierra Leone, Ghana, & Nigeria.
Latin American Folktales by
Presents more than one hundred folktales selected from the Hispanic and Indian peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean and includes stories of mischievous tricksters, scheming witches, angels, arrogant aristocrats, humble peasants, and heroes and heroines.
The People Could Fly by
Virginia Hamilton tells 24 stories that kept her ancestors' culture alive during slavery, from spirited animal trickster tales and robust tall tales to spine-chilling tales of the supernatural and moving narratives of slaves in search of freedom.
Talk That Talk: An Anthology of African-American Storytelling by
Contains almost 100 stories by famous yarn-spinners from the United States, Africa, and the Caribbean, ranging from ghost stories to ghetto adventures.
The Sacred Door and Other Stories by
Makuchi retells the stories that she heard at home when she was growing up in her native Cameroon. The collection of thirty-four folktales of the Beba showcases a wide variety of stories that capture the richness and complexities of an agrarian society's oral literature and traditions.
The Book of Greek and Roman Folktales, Legends, and Myths by
This anthology presents a rich body of popular oral stories that include, but range well beyond, mythology--from heroic legends, fairy tales, and fables to ghost stories, urban legends, and jokes. This unique anthology presents the largest collection of these tales ever assembled. Featuring nearly four hundred stories in authoritative and highly readable translations, this is the first book to offer a representative selection of the entire range of traditional classical storytelling.
Primal Myths by
A comprehensive collection of creation stories ranging across widely varying times and cultures, including Ancient Egyptian, African, and Native American.
World Mythology by
This new edition of World Mythology offers 59 of the world's great myths from Greece and Rome, the Middle East, Northern Europe, the British Isles, the Far East and Pacific Islands, Africa, and the Americas.
Fair Is Fair by
The first collection of its kind, this collection contains 30 world folktales of justice about wise judges, clever lawyers, and deceitful tricksters, from places as diverse as ancient Greece, Morocco, Germany, China, and Ireland. Some date back to pre-biblical days while others come from the American colonies.
Her Stories: African American folktales, fairy tales, and true tales by
Virginia Hamilton tells 19 stories focused on the magical lore and wondrous imaginings of Black women. Vibrant paintings by Caldecott Medallists Leo and Diane Dillon glow with the drama and mystery of each tale while reflecting the warmth and beauty of the people who first told them.
The Cloak of Dreams by
Together, the tales and pictures accentuate the motifs and themes that run throughout Balázs' work: wandering protagonists, mysterious woods and mountains, solitude, and magical transformation. His fairy tales express our deepest desires and the hope that, even in the midst of tragedy, we can transcend our difficulties and forge our own destinies.
Once upon a Time: a short history of fairy tale by
From wicked queens, beautiful princesses, elves, monsters, and goblins to giants, glass slippers, poisoned apples, magic keys, and mirrors, the characters and images of fairy tales have cast a spell over readers and audiences, both adults and children, for centuries. These fantastic storieshave travelled across cultural borders, and been passed on from generation to generation, ever-changing, renewed with each re-telling. Few forms of literature have greater power to enchant us and rekindle our imagination than a fairy tale.But what is a fairy tale? Where do they come from and what do they mean? What do they try and communicate to us about morality, sexuality, and society? The range of fairy tales stretches across great distances and time; their history is entangled with folklore and myth, and their inspiration drawson ideas about nature and the supernatural, imagination and fantasy, psychoanalysis, and feminism.Marina Warner has loved fairy tales over a long writing life, and she explores here a multitude of tales through the ages, their different manifestations on the page, the stage, and the screen. From the phenomenal rise of Victorian and Edwardian literature to contemporary children's stories, Warnerunfolds a glittering array of examples, from classics such as Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and The Sleeping Beauty, the Grimm Brothers' Hansel and Gretel, and Hans Andersen's The Little Mermaid, to modern-day realizations including Walt Disney's Snow White and gothic interpretations such as Pan'sLabyrinth.In ten succinct chapters, Marina Warner digs into a rich hoard of fairy tales in their brilliant and fantastical variations, in order to define a genre and evaluate a literary form that keeps shifting through time and history. Her book makes a persuasive case for fairy tale as a crucial repositoryof human understanding and culture.
Favorite Folktales from Around the World by
From Africa, Burma, and Czechoslovakia to Turkey, Vietnam, and Wales here are more than 150 of the world's best-loved folktales from more than forty countries and cultures. These tales of wonder and transformation, of heroes and heroines, of love lost and won, of ogres and trolls, stories both jocular and cautionary and legends of pure enchantment .
Magic, Monsters, and Make-Believe Heroes by
These stories are so fantastic, some resonating so deeply that we elevate them to the status of religion. Illuminating everything from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Dungeons and Dragons, and from Drunken Master to Mad Max, Douglas E. Cowan offers a modern manifesto for why and how mythology remains a vital force today.
Flying Too Close to the Sun: Myths in Art from Classical to Contemporary by
Classical Greek and Roman myths continue to be a source of cultural inspiration. The struggles of heroes, both triumphant and tragic, with gods, monsters, and fate, exert a particular grip on our imagination. Visual artists have long expressed and reworked these foundational stories. This is the first book to unite myth-inspired artworks by ancient, modern, and contemporary artists, from Botticelli and Caravaggio to Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst.
Hero with a Thousand Faces by
Since its release in 1949,The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In these pages, Campbell outlines the Hero's Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world's mythic traditions.
Magic, Monsters, and Make-Believe Heroes by
Magic, Monsters, and Make-Believe Heroes looks at fantasy film, television, and participative culture as evidence of our ongoing need for a mythic vision--for stories larger than ourselves into which we write ourselves and through which we can become the heroes of our own story. Why do we tell and retell the same stories over and over when we know they can't possibly be true? Contrary to popular belief, it's not because pop culture has run out of good ideas. Rather, it is precisely because these stories are so fantastic, some resonating so deeply that we elevate them to the status of religion. Illuminating everything from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Dungeons and Dragons, and from Drunken Master to Mad Max, Douglas E. Cowan offers a modern manifesto for why and how mythology remains a vital force today.
The Maid of the North by
A collection of twenty-one folk and fairy tales from around the world featuring clever heroines.