Fairy Tales by the Countess d'Aulnoy/Preface
PREFACE
The Fairy Tales of the Countess d'Aulnoy, after having delighted old and young for nearly two hundred years, are now, strange to say, for the first time presented to the English reader in their integrity.
This assertion may appear startling to those who are familiar with many English versions of the most popular of them; but it is, nevertheless, a fact, as the examination of this little volume will prove.
Early in the last century, three volumes of Fairy Tales were published, under the title of "A Collection of Novels and Tales of the Fairies, written by that celebrated wit of France, the Countess d'Anois, translated from the best edition of the original French, by several hands." And in 1817 the same collection reappeared in two small volumes, with a new preface, and entitled, "Fairy Tales, translated from the French of the Countess d'Anois." Now, it will scarcely be believed that, although the collectors introduced the novels which link the second series of her Fairy Tales together, after the fashion of the old Italian novelists, they not only omitted the whole of the first series, but also several of the best of the second; substituting, in the place of the latter, tales by the Countess de Murat, and the Countess d'Auneuil, without distinction or explanation, changing the titles where they occurred in the intermediate narrative, and altering or wholly omitting the remarks made upon them by the personages for whose entertainment they are supposed to be related, so that the reader could not suspect the imposition that was practised upon him, for what reason it is difficult to imagine.
Nor was the injustice to the author limited to this singular caprice. The tales, instead of being faithfully translated, were recklessly abridged and loosely paraphrased; while the incidental couplets occasionally, and the versified morals invariably, were dispensed with altogether.
Other abridgments and paraphrases of a few of these stories have appeared in sundry juvenile publications; and, in a very recent one, the rising generation was presented with "Babiole," "Princess Rosette," "Princess Printaniere" (called "Princess Maia"), "The Beneficent Frog," and "The Good Little Mouse;" but still abridged, and adapted to the atmosphere of the nursery. I beg to disclaim any intention of depreciating these latter productions, which are avowedly addressed to the youngest class of readers; but the first was a literary fraud, which cannot be too severely denounced, whether it be regarded as an imposition on the public or an injustice to the original author. And yet the writer of the Preface to the fifth edition (London, 1766) says, "I shall not pretend to say anything in commendation of the translators, only that they have kept up to the sense and spirit of the author, whose thoughts are so elegant and refined, their beauties would have been lost in a paraphrase." Is it possible that this person could have been acquainted with "the best edition of the original French," from which he professes this translation was made? I must, in charity, hope not, and imagine that he was himself deceived by the "several hands" who perpetrated the extraordinary concoction in which "The Palace of Revenge," "Anguilletta," "Young and Handsome," and "Perfect Love," by the Countess de Murat, take the places of "Fortunée," "Babiole," "Serpentin Vert," "Prince Marcassin," and "Le Dauphin;" while "The Knights-Errant," and "The Tyranny of the Fairies Destroyed," by the Countess d'Auneuil, are thrown in, I presume, to compound for the omission of "La Biche au Bois," "La Grenouille Bienfaisante," and the nine stories contained in the "Contes des Fées "of Madame d'Aulnoy.
The volume now presented to the Public, whatever may be its demerits, contains at any rate nothing that is not the composition of the Countess d'Aulnoy. The omissions consist of, first, the Novels with which the second series of her Fairy Tales, entitled, "Les Fées á la Mode," were interlarded, possessing little interest in themselves, and unnecessary as vehicles for the sprightly and ingenious stories they introduce; and, secondly, of the two concluding tales, "Prince Marcassin," and "Le Dauphin," which, though not wanting in merit, as far as fancy and humour are concerned, could not, without considerable alterations in their details, have been rendered unobjectionable to the English, reader. In order, however, to render the work as complete as possible, a brief analysis of the plot of each of these stories will be found in the Appendix, page 609.
Had not the many liberties I have taken with the Fairy Tales of Madame d'Aulnoy, in adapting them to the stage, made it a point of conscience with me to adhere as rigidly as possible to the original text on this occasion, I should have been stimulated to it by another circumstance, which evidently had a precisely contrary effect on my predecessors. The numberless allusions to the persons, events, works, manners, and customs of the age in which they were written, were doubtlessly considered incumbrances by those whose only object was to provide amusement for the Nursery; and I do not dispute the discretion with which they might have been altered or omitted in abridgments made for that special purpose; but such a plea cannot be put in for the translators of "the best edition of the original French," who professed to give the general English Public the works of a "celebrated wit of France," whose "thoughts are so elegant and refined, their beauties would be lost in a paraphrase."
I indulge in the hope that a new interest will be imparted to these old favourites, when they shall be found to be not only amusing fictions, but curious reflexions of the Courts of Versailles and Madrid, at the close of the seventeenth century; the dress and manners accurately described, and the pomps and pastimes in many instances scarcely exaggerated. This will be evident, I think, not only from the foot-notes I have appended, when immediate explanation appeared necessary, but in the Appendix, containing such additional information and remarks as would have incumbered the margin or interrupted the story.
I have only to add here, that while I have endeavoured to render the text as literally as the idioms of the two languages would admit, and spared no pains, where the passage was obscure or the expression obsolete, in attaining the nearest approach in my power to the sense of the author, (which has been frequently most ludicrously perverted by the "several hands" aforesaid,) I have left the proper names of the various personages untranslated, having come to that determination after much consideration, and in consequence of the great inconsistency and confusion of identity I found had resulted from the attempts to translate them by others.
The incidental verse, and the "moralités," as they are called, though unavoidably not so literally rendered as the prose, will, I trust, be found as true to the spirit of the original, and retaining the colour of the period in which it was composed,—the period of Lulli, in music; and in painting, of Watteau and Parterre.