The Lost Princess: Women Writers and the History of Classic Fairy Tales by Anne E. Duggan offers a captivating and insightful exploration of the oft-overlooked contributions of French female authors, shedding light on how their narratives and perspectives have significantly impacted the evolution of literary fairy tales in Europe and America. In the introduction, Duggan states the main objective behind the book, which is to trace the history of conteuses, French women taletellers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mainly Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, Charlotte-Rose Caumont de La Force, Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier, Henriette-Julie de Murat, and Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve. She aims to challenge assumptions about women collectors and writers of fairy tales and their contribution to what has become known as classic fairy tales. Duggan dispels these assumptions by “unearthing” the histories of the forementioned women authors to reveal their strong voices and the way they challenged patriarchy and asserted their female agency. She also strives to underscore their impact on classic fairy tales, which she believes has been ignored even by twentieth and twenty-first-century women fairy tale writers, who take fairy tales from mainly male sources: Charles Perrault, Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen.
Duggan believes that the French fairy-tale writers, the lost princesses, inspired by Italian writers such as Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile, challenged gender norms and promoted the equality of women in their novella-like fairy tales by using complex plot development as opposed to the fairy tales written by Perrault and Brothers Grimm. She dedicates a section in the introduction to the historical and social context of the conteuses which she claims did not reach the public or folklore and fairy-tale scholars outside of French studies.
Duggan argues that the activities in the French salon had an impact on German women writers who created Berlin Kaffeterkreis “Coffee Circles” and wrote fairy tales with empowered protagonists, or in some instances “folklorized” versions of d’Aulnoy’s fairy tales (16). In the last section of the introduction, titled “Fairy Tales for Adults?”, she confirms that fairy tales appealed to both children and adults even after the rise of children’s literature in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. She claims that fairy tales written by women appealed to adults with risqué, gender-challenging, and gender-fluid themes that entertained a broad audience base, including the royal class in the United Kingdom and its elite culture.
A chapter titled “A Not-So-Passive Cinderella” aims to challenge Cinderella’s portrayal as a passive character in classic fairy tales written by male authors. Duggan provides an array of Cinderella variants highlighting the contributions of French fairy-tale writers such as d’Aulnoy, L’Héritier, and La Force. She argues that the empowered version of Cinderella written by d’Aulnoy, “Finette-Cinders,” impacted folk oral traditions in France, the Francophone United States, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, despite the folklorization of d’Aulnoy’s tale by fairy-tale transmitters (38). This chapter highlights the assertive and dynamic version of Cinderella crafted by d’Aulnoy and other French women writers. These tales included empowering themes such as vengeance, agency, and independence, which subverted traditional gender norms. The chapter ends with a comparison between Disney’s “Cinderella,” an adaptation of Charles Perrault’s version, and Václav Vorlíček’s “Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella,” based on Nêmcová’s “Three Cinderella Tales,” which Duggan argues is a Czech folklorized version of d’Aulnoy’s “Finette-Cinders.”
The chapter titled “Beauties, Beasts and d’Aulnoy’s Legacy” traces d’Aulnoy’s influence on the “Beauty and the Beast” tale that circulated in France and England. Duggan focuses on the legacy of d’Aulnoy’s “The Ram” and “The Green Serpent,” inspired by “Cupid and Psyche” and Straparola’s “The Pig Prince,” as the reimagined and recontextualized version of the animal-bridegroom tradition. The chapter then delves into the details of d’Aulnoy’s tales, particularly the protagonist’s moving into the monster’s magical world and the doubling of the beast character, which are d’Aulnoy’s contribution to the tale. However, the rivalry between the sisters and the protagonist’s imprisonment were contributions of Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve. Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s version was adapted for the screen by Jean Cocteau (1946), Disney (1991), and Disney’s live-action film (2017). The last two sections of the chapter highlight the reception and the adaptation of D’Aulnoy’s legacy in England.
A chapter titled “The Other Famous Cat Tale” explores cat stories in fairy tales and the development of Perrault’s “Puss-in-Boots,” La Force’s “Persinette,” and the Grimms’ “Rapunzel.” Duggan emphasizes the ways d’Aulnoy reshaped and readapted motifs from these tales to write “The White Cat,” a narrative that challenged patriarchal norms around gender roles and marriage. The chapter then surveys the various adaptations of d’Aulnoy’s fairy tale in Britain, France, and Mexico in the form of pantomimes, féerie-vaudeville, and comic books. This highlights the influence of d’Aulnoy’s cat tale up to the twentieth century, which thrived along with the other popular versions of the cat tale published around the same time.
“The Lost Amazon Warriors” engages with the portrayal of female warriors or femme fortes in fairy tales written by Henriette-Julie de Murat, Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier, and Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy drawing from elements found in tales written by Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile. The protagonist in these tales, whom Duggan calls the hero(ine), challenges conventional gender roles and expectations by cross-dressing and adopting feminine and masculine sets of skills. The chapter then showcases the popularity and the development of these tales, especially d’Aulnoy’s “Belle-Belle” in Europe and across the world, which manifested in adaptations of the story in various forms such as in magazines, pantomimes, and board games.
The Lost Princess: Women Writers and the History of Classic Fairy Tales is a compelling exploration of the role of French women writers in re-shaping and re-imagining a number of the most popular fairy tales in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and their ongoing impact into the twentieth century. Duggan carefully sheds light on the ways the conteuses contributed to the development of famous fairy tales influenced by personal, social, and historical circumstances in creating a legacy of strong female characters who defied patriarchy. The book’s title promises a comprehensive treatment of the history of classic fairy tales; however, it focuses instead on literary fairy tales in Europe, specifically those written in France. Also, the book overlooks the richness of oral tradition passed down by female (and male) tale tellers that had similar fairy-tale types and motifs, which downplays the diverse and rich origins of fairy tales in many cultures and does not reflect the history of classic fairy tales that preceded and coexisted with literary fairy tales. Looking at these aspects might lead to a more balanced representation and understanding of the history and the development of fairy tales and the role of women in shaping this vibrant genre.
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[Review length: 1102 words • Review posted on October 11, 2024]