Fairy Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship

Most of our fairy tale capital today comes from the popular tales of Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen, but this study encourages readers to explore the marvelous tales of authors from the early modern period—Giovanni Straparola, Giambattista Basile, Madame Marie-Catherine D'Aulnoy, and others—whose works enrich and expand our notion of the canon. The queen is omnipresent in these tales, as much a hallmark of the genre as its other familiar characteristics: the number three, magical objects, quests, happy endings. That queens occupy such space in these early modern tales is not surprising given the profound influence of so many powerful queens in the political landscapes of early modern England and Europe. This book argues for the historical relevance of fairy tales and explores the dynamic intersection between fictional and actual queens.