I’m looking for a hardcover compendium of fairy tales bought for me around 1990 in the UK (I don’t know if it was published then). It was heavily illustrated and contained The Little Match Girl; The Magic Fishbone; The Dragon Princess;The Little Mermaid; Ali Baba – amongst others – Many thanks.
Stump the Bookseller
New format, same book stumper solving.
When I was younger, my mother used to read to us from a thick book with stories such as The Little Match Girl. I believe it was called, “The Book of Virtues.” There are a couple of different volumes, and I’m not sure which one she had. This may not even be remotely close to what you’re looking for, but when I saw you reference that story, I thought I’d give it a shot. Good luck!
Thanks so much, but this isn’t the one. The most distinctive thing about this book is its illustrations, from screen printing to watercolour. It’s a really heavy, hardcover book. I think the cover is a pale blue.
Perhaps the “Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales” (published in 1993)? Or “A Treasury of Fairy Tales” (1994)?
Possibly one of Andrew Lang’s colored fairy books? “The Blue Fairy Book,” “The Red Fairy Book,” etc. Published at the turn of the last century – there’s at least 8 books. Wikipedia has a list of all Lang’s fairy books, with lists of all the stories in each volume.