With tales such as The Blue Mountains, The Cat and the Mouse in Partnership, The Dragon and His Grandmother, Fairer-than-a-Fairy, The Flower Queen's Daughter, The Glass Axe, How To Tell a True Princess, and many others how can anyone not find this book fun to read? Once again, Lang edits a book full of fairy tales from many lands that will entertain children and adults. The black and white illustrations are also superb.

This book is the literay edition of Disney's THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME. It stays true to the Disney version of the story and has a lot of wonderful illustrations that you won't find in other book versions of the film. After all other than the music, the animation is the best part of the movie. As for story, if you're looking for the literary masterpiece written by Victor Hugo, you won't find it here. Disney totally butchered Hugo's tale (in Hugo's story: Phoebus isn't a hero, just a horny hunk who's filled with lust; Claude Frollo isn't evil, he is overcome by his lust and desire for Esmeralda; Esmeralda isn't the brightest person in the world; and the story doesn't end all that happily) and the book remains true to that movie.

I don't know why this is, but classic books are often bound into heavy, dark tomes and printed in the tiniest print with almost no space between the lines. Perhaps the publisher imagines these books will not actually be read anymore, but instead are supposed to serve as fillers for the large shelves in aristocratic libraries and behind lawyers' desks.

Well, for those of us who still like to dust off the classics and read them, TOR's edition of the Hunchback of Notre Dame serves nicely. It's bound in a modern style--small, with an intriguing cover, with easy-on-the-eyes print. And, it's complete and unabridged (accept no substitutions on this point, otherwise you're depriving yourself of the grand vision of the artist). Also, TOR's 458-page mass market paperback is only [$]--when was the last time you got so many hours of entertainment for so little?

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a dark, desperate novel, filled with mist and moonlight and echoes in the lonely streets of 15th century Paris past midnight. In the main, it tells the intersecting stories of three lonely characters, each aching in their own way. There's Claude Frollo, archdeacon of Josas, who's spent his whole life cloistered in the tight garb of Catholicism. There's La Esmeralda, an enchantingly beautiful gypsy who's searching for her long lost mother. And, of course, there's Quasimodo, the malformed, hunchbacked figure haunting the shadows of the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Hugo knows how to tell a story--there is plenty of irony, a few good surprises, and some excellent characterization. He paints the dark places of humanity: people struggling to survive, to find hope in the midst of horror, each clinging in some way to a dream that can never be realized.

One drawback of the book is its pacing, which, at times, slows to a crawl. For example, there is a long chapter on the layout of Paris in the 15th Century, which, if you're not a city planner or fastidious historian, can get pretty long and boring. Even Hugo seems to know it becomes boring, because he recaps so often. Also, Hugo often breaks the fourth wall and directly addresses the reader, which can be distracting and anti-dramatic at times. Thirdly, I would have liked to spend some more time with that loveable wretch, Quasimodo. He has a big part in the end, but not much more. But don't let these minor annoyances stop you from reading a great story.

If you have patience, The Hunchback of Notre Dame will rebuild the gothic Notre Dame of stone in words; if you have imagination, it will acquaint you with the adventures of some extraordinary characters; and if you have a heart, you will shed a tear for Claude Frollo, La Esmeralda, and Quasimodo.

I never thought a book could make me feel such intense emotions. The story is beautifully written, and the scenes between Quasimodo and La Esmeralda are among the most touching and most heart-felt experiences in all of literature.
Quasimodo's lonliness will move you; he is too ugly and deformed to be part of this world and he accepts it. There is a gripping scene in which Quasimodo is stripped and beaten before a jeering crowd. The pain and humiliation he felt brought me to tears, yet his courage and bravery inspired me. It is certainly the most moving story I have ever read.
However, reading through Hugo's lengthy descriptions of historical events and places can get quite tedious; the constant interruptions in an otherwise riveting story may drive you mad. But they can easily be forgiven. In Hugo's novels, one chapter of story is worth a dozen chapters of history.

I am a retired high school and college instructor who taught the Iliad many times at both levels. The Rouse version was always my translation of choice, and it was enormously successful. The complaints (or halfhearted commendations here) miss the point. Most seem to think that Rouse's "plain English" version is a diminution of the original. All translations are! Rouse merely eliminated many epithets and repetitions (necessary in the meter of the poem and unnecessary in prose). But Rouse is extremely accurate within his chosen limits and the result is a brilliant achievement: a fast-moving text (as is the original) that is colloquial where appropriate, noble sithout being stuffy when nobility is called for; the result is an always ongoing, rapidly moving narrative told in vivid, sinewy prose that simply hurtles you along. It does not attempt to give the more complex reading experience that Fitzgerald and Lattimore and Fagles achieve in their superb verse translations; but these are best reserved for second . . .or 17th readings, once the complex story and relations between characters are mastered. And indeed, none of the more famous verse translations (Pope's is to be avoided: it's a beautiful Augustan poem, not Homer)--none come close to Rouse's focused and frightening rendering of Achilles' on the battlefield, once he goes into action. In short, Rouse is in spirit thoroughly "Homeric"--by turns racy and funny, savage, noble, ultimately tragic as, e.g., the dreadful Victorian versions of Butler and Lang, Leaf, & Myers are not and should be avoided). Even with the small point-size in which the text was set, Rouse's Homer is not just a bargain: it's a treasure bought at a small price.

I have been reading two translations of Homer's Iliad over the past several weeks: Robert Fagles' 1990 translation and Alexander Pope's 1743 translation. I have read the two translations in tandem, one "book" at a time. I first read Mr Fagle's translation, then the notes of Mr Pope, and finally his translation. I would call this one of the finest reading experiences of my life. I read both translations out-loud, or at least in a whisper. This winter-time reading experience has been, for me, a labor of love, a stimulating intellectual experience, a study in contrasts, and a return to the sources of Western Literature. I find Homer as fascinating as Alexander Pope claims him to be. Although his long narrative describes only a few days of the ten years war between Greece and Troy, he makes it interesting by his variety of metaphors, his close description of characters, and his attention to detail. Every man who dies is a person, with family, friends, history, and personality. Some are likeable, others are not; but in any case there are no ciphers in Homer's war. I am fascinated too by the developing theological issues of this six century BCE civilization. We might have to worship these meddlesome gods and their All-powerful Zeus, but do we always have to respect them? They seem to be all too human. In fact, the gods themselves seem to be trapped in an eternally frustrating struggle. Zeus is condemned to defend his sovereignty against a panoply of gods who must always resent his authority. Meanwhile, he is lonely, and he cannot stop himself from occasionally confiding in "that bitch" his sister and wife, Hera. She reminds me of a woman in a recent movie who said "Sometimes being a bitch is the only way a woman can save her self-respect." (Or something to that effect.) "Hera" represents that eternally angry woman who will not and cannot buckle under male domination. I find myself being grateful to this western tradition which has honored and preserved the memory of Homer and kept these ancient books in tact. I grieve at the thought of ancient celtic, african, and native american epics that have been lost or so badly mangled that they cannot be restored. I understand that there has been an enormous flurry of excitement over Mr Fagles' translation and I am certainly caught up in it as well. He tells these stories with excitement and conviction; they are as plausible and coherent today as they must have been to the privileged listeners who sat at the feet of Homer. But I am also grateful to Penguin Press who last year celebrated their 50th anniversary by republishing this magnificent translation by Alexander Pope. I only wish more of the reading public had heard about the celebration. I hate to admit that I was an indifferent student in college. I had other things on my mind. But now, in my middle years, I am glad to have the time and opportunity, to curl up with two great translations of Homer's Iliad on a winter's evening, to discover again the joy of reading superb English.

The version of the "Iliad" that I read was the prose translation by W. H. D. Rouse (those of you interested in the verse translation should see the edition provided by Robert Fagles). Agamemnon holds a Trojan captive as his concubine, Chryseis. He refuses to release the girl to her father Chryses, a priest of Apollo, for ransom. Apollo sends a plague as punishment and Agamemnon finally relents. But, he replaces her with Briseis, the concubine of Achilles, the leading Greek warrior. Achilles now refuses to fight. His closest friend, Patroclus, dons Achilles' armor and goes to battle, hoping to rally the Greeks against the Trojans. He is killed in combat by Hector, son of the ruler of Troy. Achilles is furious. He obtains new armor, is reconciled to Agamemnon, and goes to meet Hector in battle. Hector is killed and the epic ends with Hector's funeral. This is one of the great classics of literature and should be required reading for every College student. Unfortunately, it isn't.

Andrew Lang was one of the first editors to collect multicultural fairy tales into one volume for readers. The Crimson Fairy Book offers tales from many lands. Included tales are How to find out a True Friend, The Language of Beasts, The Ambitious Tailor, Clever Maria, The Colony of Cats, How the Beggar Boy turned into Count Piro, and many others. The Blue Fairy Book is still the most popular with the best known tales, but look here for lesser known tales.

I just ordered a number of the Andrew Lang books from Amazon. The Blue Fairy Book arrived yesterday, and I could not have been more disappointed. It came in a very plain blue hardback. I opened it up, and NOWHERE inside is Andrew Lang mentioned, nowhere are any of the illustrations, from either of the two other versions I know. The production quality -- the paper, the binding -- is poor, and the "author" is listed throughout as "Anonymous." The publisher of this book is IndyPublish.com. I don't know the deal, or how they get listed under Andrew Lang, but I recommend that if you want a real Andrew Lang book, don't buy one of the IndyPublish books.

Andrew Lang's series of fairy-tale books are some of the fundamental children's reading of the twentieth and late nineteenth century. The stories are not "original": there's no such thing when they were almost without exception passed down orally; but they are in old, not very modernized tellings.

Many readers who have only seen or read modern, Disney-fied versions of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty or Snow-White will not recognize some of the darker twists in these tales. For example, in Sleeping Beauty, when the Prince wakes the Princess and marries her, the story is by no means over. The Prince's mother is an Ogress, whom his father married for her wealth, and it's suspected that she likes to eat little children; that "whenever she saw little children passing by, she had all the difficulty in the world to avoid falling upon them". The happy couple have two children, named Day and Morning, and the Ogress decides to dine on them one day when the Prince is away. Yes, it still has a happy ending, but Disney it isn't.

The illustrations--8 full page, plus 130 smaller ones--are all from the original 1891 edition. They're black and white woodcuts; very atmospheric, and I think most children will like them.

The only thing that might have to be explained to a child is the occasional use of vocabulary that is no longer current. Most often this is the use of "thee" and "thou"; but a few other words will crop up. However, they're usually inferable from context, and the stories are marvellous entertainment regardless.

"The Blue Fairy Book" is amazing. I am planning to collect all of Andrew Lang's color fairy tale books. It has an excellent group of stories from different fairy tale writers, including Perrault, d'Aulnoy, and Grimm. This book was originally printed in the 19th century. It has not been abridged, nor have any of the original pictures been taken out. (Be warned, they're *artistic*) These are the original, unaltered by Disney versions, and contain the nightmarish plots they were meant to have. Anyone who collects fairy tales should have this.

The Green Fairy Book has stories from Spanish and Chinese traditions and a few written by the Comte de Caylus. Also stories by Sebillot, Fenelon, Kletke, Mme. de'Aulnoy, and the Brothers Grimm. Includes The Bue Bird, Sylvain and Jocos, Prince Narcissus and the Princess Potentilla, The Three Little Pigs, and The Half-Chick. 42 stories.

Andrew Lang's colored fairy books are justifiably famous, and this (along with "The Red Fairy Book") is one of the best of the series. As in all the volumes, the prose is clear and swift, moving the tales along. Since this was the third book in the series, he was not yet scraping the barrels of world fairy tales for the leavings; contrariwise, however, the first volume (Blue) has all of Ye Olde Stand-byes, while this and Red have tales just as wonderful that are less well known.

Despite Lang's flaws -- most notably, his heroines have a way of turning passive -- there are far worse ways to introduce a child to the spirit of wonder tales than this volume.

I love Dover Children's Thrift Classics. It's a wonderful idea to put a manageable number of classic stories (6, in this case) in 1 volume for such a low price.

I'm not crazy about this translation of Perrault's version of Cinderella. It's not so much the happy ending for everyone (Cinderella fixes it so her stepsisters live happily ever after, unlike the Grimm version in which their eyes are pecked out by birds) as the sometimes awkward, sometimes perfuntory descriptions & narrations. On the other hand, the Grimm version lacks all the familiar elements, such as the fairy godmother, pumpkin coach, etc.

Of the other stories, one is from Turkey & 3 from France, which means they are new to me, since I am mostly familiar with the Grimm volume I had as a child. I especially like "Felicia and the Pot of Pinks," in which a long-suffering and poor orphan girl with a cruel brother cherishes a pot of flowers, which in the end turns into a handsome prince, who marries the girl, who turns out to be a princess. The last story is "Snow White and Rose Red," which I remember from my childhood Grimm collection.

Definitely worth the price to have some nice fairy tales to read to children.