“Simply superb” - Jack Zipes
Griffins, wizards, dryads and fairies; banished kings, misguided queens and mysterious bee-men: the curious characters who populated Frank Stockton’s fanciful fairy tale worlds once delighted generations of readers on both sides of the Atlantic. When he died in 1902 the New York Times lamented, “It is not easy to imagine any greater loss to American letters.” Yet despite his profound significance for the development of the fairy tale, and his direct influence on American fantasy classics like The Wizard of Oz, Frank Stockton’s trailblazing stories have fallen out of print. Now, readers young and old can once again enjoy his beloved stories in this new edition of his most celebrated collection, The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales, first published in 1887 — complete with a biographical introduction which explains Stockton’s profound importance to the story of fantasy literature.
Edited by Hilary Emmett & Thomas Ruys Smith in collaboration with students from the Department of American Studies at UEA.
Praise for this edition:
“Though the classical writers of fantasy works have been celebrated throughout the world, there are some who have been neglected and need to be revived. This has been the mission of a collaborative project with students at the University of East Anglia, and their work is simply superb, for they have redesigned and republished Frank Stockton’s major work, The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales. Stockton (1834-1902) was one of the first American writers to pioneer unique fantasy tales and novels at the end of the nineteenth century. Influenced by Hans Christian Andersen, he transcended the Danish writer’s works, and thanks to the East Anglian collective, we can see how significant Stockton’s imaginative works are.”
- Jack Zipes, Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota and author of Buried Treasures: The Power of Political Fairy Tales
“If you’ve wept too many tears over the Little Mermaid and if you’ve spent sleepless nights worrying about evil stepmothers but still long for fairy-tale magic, you’re ready to enter Frank Stockton’s universe of beekeepers and griffins, dryads and dwarfs. In these kingdoms, everything imaginable goes wrong, and, providentially, the quests and journeys of his characters are designed to make things right again. The goal is no longer wealth and power, and it is also anything but “all that glitters.” Instead, Stockton’s figures embark on journeys of self-discovery, fixated on “all that matters” and using their superpowers to find their calling, in the deepest sense of the term. Einstein told us that, if you want intelligent children, read them fairy tales. If you want more intelligent children, ready to think more and think harder about the life choices we make, read them Stockton’s fairy tales, stories that create the safe space of “once upon a time” for all generations.”
- Maria Tatar, Professor Emerita of Folklore and Mythology at Harvard University, author of The Heroine with 1001 Faces and editor of the Norton Critical Edition of Classic Fairy Tales.
“This edition will enlighten and entertain readers of classic fairy tales by introducing them to America’s Hans Christian Andersen, Frank Stockton. The nine tales, originally published in St Nicholas Magazine in the 1880s, are contextualised by a richly researched introduction that explains how Stockton made a distinctive contribution to American fantasy for both adult and child readers.”
- Michelle Smith, editor of Literary Cultures and Nineteenth-Century Childhoods