Search Worlds Without End

Winner of the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies

Entrancing, multi-layered and as wittily subversive as fairy tales themselves, this beautifully illustrated work explores and illuminates the unfolding history of famous fairy tales and the contexts in which they flourished. It also lifts the curtain on the tellers themselves -- from ancient sibyls and old crones to the more modern Angela Carter and, of course, Walt Disney. A brilliant compendium of folklore, fairytales and learning which reveals unexpected links and histories behind some of our oldest and most-loved tales.

Table of Contents:

• List of Illustrations
• Picture Credits
• Introduction

Part One - The Tellers

1. In the Cave of the Enchantress
2. The Old Wives' Tale
3. Word of Mouth
4. Game Old Birds
5. No Hideous Hum
6. Saint Anne, Dear Nan
7. The Magic of the Cross
8. The Glass Paving and the Secret Foot
9. On Riddles, Asses and the Wisdom of Fools
10. Sweet Talk, Pleasant Laughter
11. In the Kingdom of Fiction
12. Granny Bonnets, Wolves' Cover

Part Two - The Tales

1. Absent Mothers
2. Wicked Stepmothers
3. Demon Lovers
4. The Ogre's Appetite
5. Reluctant Brides
6. Go! Be a Beast
7. The Runaway Girls
8. The Silence of the Fathers
9. The Language of Hair
10. From the Beast to the Blonde
11. The Silence of the Daughters

• Conclusion
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Bibliography

Finalist for the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Myth and Fantasy Studies

Ogres and giants, bogeymen and bugaboos embody some of our deepest fears, dominating popular fiction, from tales such as "Jack the Giant Killer" to the cannibal monster Hannibal Lecter, from the Titans of Greek mythology to the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, from Frankenstein to Men In Black.

Following her brilliant study of fairy tales, From the Beast to the Blonde, Marina Warner's rich, enthralling new book explores the ever increasing presence of such figures of male terror, and the strategems we invent to allay the monsters we conjure up -- from horror stories to lullabies and jokes. Travelling from ogres to cradle songs, from bananas to cannibals, Warner traces the roots of our commonest anxieties, unravelling with vigorous intelligence, creative originality and relish, the myths and fears which define our sensibilites.

Illustrated with a wealth of images -- from the beautiful and the bizarre to the downright scary -- this is a tour de force of scholarship and imagination.

Table of Contents:

• Preface
• Prologue
• Introduction

Part One - Scaring

• I. "Here Comes the Bogeyman!"
• Reflection: Goya: "Saturn Devouring His Child"
• II. "My Father He Ate Me..."
• Reflection: The Nymphaeum of the Emperor Tiberius
• III. The Polyp and the Cyclops
• IV. The Devil's Banquet
• Reflection: The Feast of Corpus Christi, 1996: The Patum of Berga, Catalonia
• V. "Hoc Est Corpus"
• VI. "Now... We Can Begin to Feed"
• VII. "Terrors Properly Applied"

Part Two - Lulling

• Reflection: Caravaggio: "The Rest on the Flight into Egypt"
• VIII. "Sing Now Mother... What Me Shall Befall"
• IX. "Herod the King, in His Raging"
• X. "And Thou, Oh Nightengale"

Part Three - Making Mock

• Reflection: Louis Desprez: "The Chimera"
• XI. "In the Genre of the Monstrous"
• XII. Circe's Swine: "Wizard and Brute"
• XIII. "All My Business Is My Song"
• XIV. "Fee Fie Fo Fum"
• XV. "Of the Paltriness of Things"
• Reflection: Albert Eckhout: Eight Brazilian Portraits
• XVI. "Going Bananas"

• Epilogue: "Snip! Snap! Snip!"
• Picture Section
• Notes

When a mummy in the Museum of Albion is unpacked it is found to contain a bundle of curious objects and documents which tell of the wanderings of an unknown woman, Leto.

On the run, in a far-off era of civil strife, Leto gives birth to twins, shelters with wolves, survives in a desert stronghold as the lover of its commander, stows away on a ship loaded with plundered antiquities and then works as a maid in a war-torn city. She loses her son but saves her daughter during a long siege.

As the novel sweeps from mythological times and the Middle Ages to the treasure-hunting of Victorian Europe and into the present day, Leto reappears in different guises. Eventually she becomes a servant to a rock singer, and begins to search for her son.

Marina Warner has gathered together a magical collection of fairy tales by the great women storytellers of the 17th and 18th centuries. These are passionate, extraordinary, and occasionally proto-feminist retellings of classic fairy stories by women who ingeniously used the fairy tale genre to comment on their own times and experiences. The stories are all in superb new translations by celebrated writers, including A. S. Byatt, Gilbert Adair and John Ashbery, with a brilliant introduction by Marina Warner, who is recognised as one of our greatest experts on myth and fairy tale.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Marina Warner
• "The White Cat" by Marie Catherine d'Aulnoy, translated by John Ashbery
• "The Subtle Princess" by Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier de Villandon, translated by Gilbert Adair
• "Bearskin" by Henriette-Julie de Murat, translated by Terence Cave
• "The Counterfeit Marquise" by Charles Perrault & Francois-Timoléon de Choisy, translated by Ranjit Bolt
• "Starlight" by Henriette-Julie de Murat, translated by Terence Cave
• "The Great Green Worm" by Marie Catherine d'Aulnoy, translated by A.S. Byatt
• Glossary
• Notes on the Authors and the Stories
• Background Reading