Books in the Oddly Modern Fairy Tales series

The description for this book, Fairy Tales for the Disillusioned: Enchanted Stories from the French Decadent Tradition, will be forthcoming.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, unique tales inspired by traditional literary forms appeared frequently in socialist-leaning British periodicals. Acclaimed critic and author Rosen collects more than 40 of the best and most enduring examples of these stories in one beau...tiful volume.
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A collection of twenty-eight brilliant and strange stories, inspired by Japanese folk tales and written by renowned Western expatriate Lafcadio Hearn Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was one of the nineteenth century's best-known writers, his name celebrated alongside those of Mark Twa...in and Robert Louis Stevenson. Born in Greece and raised in Ireland, Hearn was a true prodigy and world traveler. He worked as a reporter in Cincinnati, New Orleans, and the West Indies before heading to Japan in 1890 on a commission from Harper's. There, he married a Japanese woman from a samurai family, changed his name to Koizumi Yakumo, and became a Japanese subject. An avid collector of traditional Japanese tales, legends, and myths, Hearn taught literature and wrote his own tales for both Japanese and Western audiences. Japanese Tales of Lafcadio Hearn brings together twenty-eight of Hearn's strangest and most entertaining stories in one elegant volume. Hearn's tales span a variety of genres. Many are fantastical ghost stories, such as The Corpse-Rider, in which a man foils the attempts of his former wife's ghost to haunt him. Some are love stories in which the beloved is not what she appears to be: in The Story of Aoyagi, a young samurai narrowly escapes the wrath of his lord for marrying without permission, only to discover that his wife is the spirit of a willow tree. Throughout this collection, Hearn's reverence for Japan shines through, and his stories provide insights into the country's artistic and cultural heritage. With an introduction by Andrei Codrescu discussing Hearn's life and work, as well as a foreword by Jack Zipes, Japanese Tales of Lafcadio Hearn provides a unique window into one writer's multicultural literary journey.
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Nineteen classic fairy tales, retold for younger readers in the early twentieth-century, including Rapunzel, Little Red Riding-Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, and The Sleeping Beauty.

A collection of radical political fairy tales-some in English for the first time-from one of the great female practitioners of the genre Hermynia Zur Muhlen (1883-1951), one of the twentieth century's great political writers, was not seemingly destined for a revolutionary, unconv...entional literary career. Born in Vienna to an aristocratic Catholic family, Zur Muhlen married an Estonian count. But she rebelled, leaving her upper-class life to be with the Hungarian writer and Communist Stefan Klein, and supporting herself through translations and publications. Altogether, Zur Muhlen wrote thirty novels, mysteries, and story collections, and translated around 150 works, including those of Upton Sinclair, John Galsworthy, and Edna Ferber. A wonderful new addition to the Oddly Modern Fairy Tales Series, The Castle of Truth and Other Revolutionary Tales presents English readers with a selection of Zur Muhlen's best political fairy tales, some translated from German for the first time. In contrast to the classical tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, Zur Muhlen's candid, forthright stories focus on social justice and the plight of the working class, with innovative plots intended to raise the political consciousness of readers young and old. For example, in The Glasses, readers are encouraged to rip off the glasses that deceive them, while in The Carriage Horse, horses organize a union to resist their working and living conditions. In The Broom, a young worker learns how to sweep away injustice. With an informative introduction by Jack Zipes and period illustrations by George Grosz, John Heartfield, Heinrich Vogeler, and Karl Holtz, The Castle of Truth and Other Revolutionary Tales revives the legacy of a notable female artist whose literary and political work remains relevant in our own time.
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