FIRST CRITICAL REVIEW: I, Beast - THE ILLUSTRATED BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (156 Pages - 400 Illustrations) By William Richert with River Sauts About the Book: A visual delight A great and brand new read I recently watched the Disney cartoon version of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast on dvd, along with my young friend Kazia. The movie's Broadway-musical-style show tunes are witty, the Beast is sufficiently ugly and endearing, and Beauty, God bless her, is a rare media heroine who actually reads books Nonetheless, I found myself disturbed by the broad liberties the Disney Studio took in...

Author and Director William Richert tells the original tale of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST for the first time since 1740, when the story of how a Prince was changed into a Beast until somebody loved him for his soul, and not for his physical appearance. The creation of the Beast as part of a fairy tale first came into being in Paris among the aristocrats of the time as a way to explain, perhaps, the relationships of younger women to older men. In time the story grew and changed into the present Walt Disney incarnation. But the roots of the story are steeped in pagan literature, and the truth of the...