This volume offers a comprehensive critical and theoretical introduction to the genre of the fairy tale. It explores the ways in which folklorists have defined the genre assesses the various methodologies used in the analysis and interpretation of fairy tale provides a detailed account of the historical development of the fairy tale as a literary form engages with the major ideological controversies that have shaped critical and creative approaches to fairy tales in the 20th and 21st centuries demonstrates that the fairy tale is a highly metamorphic genre that has flourished in diverse...