It is to Perrault that we owe our acquaintance with the greater number of good old-fashioned fairy-tales, but an edition of these, although it includes such intimate friends of our childhood as Blue Beard, the Sleeping Beauty, and Little Red Riding-Hood, is hardly complete without “Beauty and the Beast”; a version of this tale, by Mme. Le Prince de Beaumont, has, therefore, been added to this collection. It has also been increased, space permitting it, by the insertion of two tales by Mme. la Comtesse d'Aulnoy; her writings, of a less robust class than those of Perrault, possess in their atmosphere of hidden magic, the charm which resides in that special feature of fairyland, and the addition of “The Benevolent Frog” and “Princess Rosette” will not, we think, be unwelcome to the youthful reader.
