Andrew Lang
Coloured Fairy Books

When you think about fairy tales and myths, it is difficult not to think of Andrew Lang and his contributions to the stories that we know and love.

Lang was born in 1844, and though during his long life he was known as a novelist, an excellent literary critic and a poet, he is now most renowned for his work in collecting folk tales and fairy tales.

Thanks to Lang, we have tales that would have long since been forgotten or changed past recognition, and he offers a glimpse into the stories that have been told for hundreds of years. Lang did a great deal of work in the field of anthropology, and his strong interests lay in what could not be seen.

He had a keep interest in the myths and religions of other cultures, and he also theorized that many of the stories that came down to us existed previously, and that many of the mysterious things that happen in them could be attributed to the beliefs of the primitive people who had first told them.

In the course of his studies, he would put together the well-known and well-loved series, the so-called “Colored” Fairy Books. He started with the Blue Fairy Book in 1889 and they would be published regularly throughout his career.

The last, the Lilac Fairy Book, was published in 1910, just two years before his death. Lang himself did not collect the stories orally; they came to him through a number of different sources and from a number of different lands.

One of the things that makes Lang's work so influential on the way that we read and understand myths and folktales is that he is generally considered a person who opened up a whole world of myth to English speakers.

The stories that he selected for his Fairy Books span the globe, and thanks to the efforts of Lang, his wife, and other translators, many tales that were of Greek, Chinese and Japanese origin were translated into English for the first time.

As a result of Lang's efforts, his books kept alive such old favorites as “The Emperor's New Clothes,” “Blue Beard,” and “Snow White,” while serving to introduce an entire generation to things like the Japanese tale of “Urashima Tarô and the Turtle,” the Russian story of :The Death of Koschei the Deathless,” and the Norwiegian tale of “The Master Maid.”

Andrew Lang died of angina pectoris in Banchory, and though he left behind a truly enormous body of work when it comes to journalism, prose and criticism, it is his painstaking and fantastical work with fairytales that has kept his name so familiar to those who love stories.