I first read this book in 1983, and was amazed with it then. It's unique and extremely interesting. Iona and Peter Opie have the original tales as first printed in the English language. Added to that is the history and the actual gruesome origins of what we now consider children's stories! For example, Sleeping Beauty is not awakened by a kiss. Her Prince Charming violates her while she sleeps (and since she doesn't wake up, we can only imagine how mediocre he was...). She only awakens 9 months later, during the birth of twins! He eventually returns to her, and then the story gets more complicated with his ogre mother who wants to canibalize the children. The story of the Frog Prince is even stranger. Since these are the actual tales, we can see how we've changed the stories to fit in with our culture. This is not a book for young children. The history part was the most fascinating to me. In addition, litle details such as learning that Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of squirrel fur, not glass. Both words in French are spelled similarly (vaire, verre...I'm not sure of the spelling either)and the original printer had a typo that lives on til today.