The book I’m looking for is definitely older. It is a large, aged, dull lime green or olive green hardcover. I can’t remember what’s in the front, but there is a picture of what may be a friendly green-faced (again, duller green) troll with a white wig and a red shirt doing a cartwheel on the back cover of the book, along with a short description below it.
It is about a foot tall, 8″ wide, and 3-4″ thick. It has 600+ pages, I think… definitely more than 300.
This book looked old to me back in the 90s, so I’m guessing it is from 1990 or earlier.
Looks like it might contain a collection of Aesop, The Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen tales as well as some other stories.
Some of the stories definitely include (from memory):
– The Nightingale (Aesop)
– The Water of Life (Grimm, German)
– Sinbad the Sailor’s 4th Journey
– Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves
– The Tinderbox (Aesop)
– The Emperor’s New Suit / Clothes (Aesop)
– Stone Soup
– The Pied Piper
– The Twelve Dancing Princesses (Grimm)
– The fisherman and his wife
– The Golden Goose (Grimm)
– The Princess and the Pea
There are illustrations in the book with the stories and it is done in a very old-fashioned art style… I would think to date it to before 1980, but I’m not an expert.
I know this is pretty hard considering the lack of detail. I’ve been looking for this book for a long time. =(
I think that it would be the reader’s digest fairy tale collection volume 1&2 it was published several times from 1980-1990 it’s green
I just posted about a similar book. Did it also have nursery rhymes in it? Check out my post (it’s the most current one). I added illustrations from the book. Let me know if it’s the same illustrations.
I found my book. Maybe yours is the same book. It’s called “young years: Best loved stories and poems for little children”.