Publisher's Synopsis
The Brown Fairy Book contains stories from the American Indians, Australian Bushmen and African Kaffirs, and from Persia, Lapland, Brazil, and India. Lang did not collect any fairy tales himself from oral primary sources, yet only he and Madame d'Aulnoy have collected tales from such a large variety of sources. These collections have been immensely influential; Lang gave many of the tales their first appearance in English. He made most of the selections, while his wife and other translators did a large portion of the translating and retelling of the actual stories. Lang's urge to gather and publish fairy tales was rooted in his own experience with the folk and fairy tales of his home territory along the Anglo-Scottish border.
