Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- GENERAL INTRODUCTION
- INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME
- CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE AND MAJOR WORKS OF ANDREW LANG
- A NOTE ON THE TEXT
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- 1 THE METHOD OF FOLKLORE
- 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND FOLKLORE
- 3 FAIRY TALES
- ‘Literary Fairy Tales’, Introduction to Frederik van Eeden's Little Johannes (1895)
- ‘Perrault's Popular Tales’, Introduction to Perrault's Popular Tales (1888)
- ‘Introduction’, The Blue Fairy Book (1889)
- ‘Introduction’, The Red Fairy Book (1890)
- ‘Preface’, The Green Fairy Book (1892)
- ‘Preface’, The Yellow Fairy Book (1894)
- ‘Preface’, The Pink Fairy Book (1897)
- ‘Preface’, The Lilac Fairy Book (1910)
- 4 ANTHROPOLOGY, AND THE ORIGINS OF RELIGION
- 5 ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
- 6 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
- APPENDIX I: NAMES FREQUENTLY CITED BY LANG
- APPENDIX II: ETHINIC GROUPS CITED BY LANG
- EXPLANATORY NOTES
- Index
‘Preface’, The Lilac Fairy Book (1910)
from 3 - FAIRY TALES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 October 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- GENERAL INTRODUCTION
- INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME
- CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE AND MAJOR WORKS OF ANDREW LANG
- A NOTE ON THE TEXT
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- 1 THE METHOD OF FOLKLORE
- 2 ANTHROPOLOGY AND FOLKLORE
- 3 FAIRY TALES
- ‘Literary Fairy Tales’, Introduction to Frederik van Eeden's Little Johannes (1895)
- ‘Perrault's Popular Tales’, Introduction to Perrault's Popular Tales (1888)
- ‘Introduction’, The Blue Fairy Book (1889)
- ‘Introduction’, The Red Fairy Book (1890)
- ‘Preface’, The Green Fairy Book (1892)
- ‘Preface’, The Yellow Fairy Book (1894)
- ‘Preface’, The Pink Fairy Book (1897)
- ‘Preface’, The Lilac Fairy Book (1910)
- 4 ANTHROPOLOGY, AND THE ORIGINS OF RELIGION
- 5 ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
- 6 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
- APPENDIX I: NAMES FREQUENTLY CITED BY LANG
- APPENDIX II: ETHINIC GROUPS CITED BY LANG
- EXPLANATORY NOTES
- Index
Summary
‘What cases are you engaged in at present?’ ‘Are you stopping many teeth just now?’ ‘What people have you converted lately?’ Do ladies put these questions to the men—lawyers, dentists, clergymen, and so forth— who happen to sit next them at dinner parties?
I do not know whether ladies thus indicate their interest in the occupations of their casual neighbours at the hospitable board. But if they do not know me, or do not know me well, they generally ask ‘Are you writing anything now?’ (as if they should ask a painter ‘Are you painting anything now?’ or a lawyer ‘Have you any cases at present?’). Sometimes they are more definite and inquire ‘What are you writing now?’ as if I must be writing something—which, indeed, is the case, though I dislike being reminded of it. It is an awkward question, because the fair being does not care a bawbee what I am writing; nor would she be much enlightened if I replied ‘Madam, I am engaged on a treatise intended to prove that Normal is prior to Conceptional Totemism’—though that answer would be as true in fact as obscure in significance. The best plan seems to be to answer that I have entirely abandoned mere literature, and am contemplating a book on ‘The Causes of Early Blight in the Potato,’ a melancholy circumstance which threatens to deprive us of our chief esculent root. The inquirer would never be undeceived. One nymph who, like the rest, could not keep off the horrid topic of my occupation, said ‘You never write anything but fairy books, do you?’ A French gentleman, too, an educationist and expert in portraits of Queen Mary, once sent me a newspaper article in which he had written that I was exclusively devoted to the composition of fairy books, and nothing else. He then came to England, visited me, and found that I knew rather more about portraits of Queen Mary than he did.
In truth I never did write any fairy books in my life, except ‘Prince Prigio,’ ‘Prince Ricardo,’ and ‘Tales from a Fairy Court’ — that of the aforesaid Prigio. I take this opportunity of recommending these fairy books — poor things, but my own — to parents and guardians who may never have heard of them.
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- Information
- The Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Selected Writings of Andrew LangAnthropology, Fairy Tale, Folklore, The Origins of Religion, Psychical Research, pp. 163 - 164Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2015