Tales of Wonder: Retelling Fairy Tales Through Picture Postcards

The enduring ability of fairy tales to inspire, entertain, and adapt to changing media is the subject of this volume, richly illustrated by Zipes (emeritus German & comparative literature, Univ. of Minnesota; The Irresistible Fairy Tale: The Cultural and Social History of a Genre) with postcards from his personal collection. Filling an important gap in the scholarship of fairy tales by showing the role postcards have played in preserving and transmitting them, Zipes gives a brief history of their use as subjects for picture postcards and discusses the impact of their popularity on the dissemination and alteration of the original narratives. In chapters dedicated to the tales most commonly depicted on postcards, Zipes explores their origins, themes, and historical contexts, then provides translations of the most definitive versions of these stories. Ranging from the whimsical to the grotesque, the stylistic variety of the postcard images—from vividly colored paintings to sepia-tinted photographs of costumed children enacting famous scenes—is a testament to the power of fairy tales to communicate across cultures, language barriers, and even time.