The characters and images of stories have cast a spell over adults and children for centuries. These fantastic stories have travelled across cultural borders, and been passed on from generation to generation, ever-changing, renewed with each re-telling. Few forms of literature have greater power to enchant us and rekindle our imagination than a fairy tale. A Very Short Introduction draws on both classics and modern-day realizations in order to define a genre and evaluate a literary form that keeps shifting through time and history. The range of fairy tales stretches across great distances and...