Fee Fi Fo Fum: A Book of Fairy Tales

About the book

This is a collection of fairy stories retold by Sir Osbert Sitwell from a somewhat different angle from the traditional. He warns us in his preface that they are not written for-or only for exceptional-children, so much as for their fathers and mothers; and he also explains their appeal to the creative writer. 'It is easy to understand that there are points attractive to authors about this form of composition, and in the past they have often turned their attention to it. It should constitute for them a kind of abstract art, stylized and meticulous, and also a sort of technical exercise, while at the same time it should enable them to throw out lateral beams of light to illuminate parallels in contemporary life. Indeed, the medium affords them a perfect opportunity for oblique and tendentious comment.'

Here, then, are Sir Osbert's versions of the stories of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Puss-in-Boots, Bluebeard, Dick Whittington, and three Jacks-the hero of the Beanstalk, the Giant-Killer, and the Shark-Killer: this last is an invention of Sir Osbert's own.