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The Chronicles of Pantouflia #1-2
The Chronicles of Pantouflia
Two original fairy tales, by the renowned collector of folklore, in which Prince Prigio and Prince Ricardo struggle against the forces of evil.
191 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1889
2 people are currently reading
304 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Lang
2,935 books564 followersTales of the Scottish writer and anthropologist Andrew Lang include
The Blue Fairy Book
(1889).
Andrew Gabriel Lang, a prolific Scotsman of letters, contributed poetry, novels, literary criticism, and collected now best folklore.
The Young Scholar and Journalist
Andrew Gabriel Lang, the son of the town clerk and the eldest of eight children, lived in Selkirk in the Scottish borderlands. The wild and beautiful landscape of childhood greatly affected the youth and inspired a lifelong love of the outdoors and a fascination with local folklore and history. Charles Edward Stuart and Robert I the Bruce surrounded him in the borders, a rich area in history. He later achieved his literary Short History of Scotland .
A gifted student and avid reader, Lang went to the prestigious Saint Andrews University, which now holds a lecture series in his honor every few years, and then to Balliol College, Oxford. He later published Oxford: Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes about the city in 1880.
Moving to London at the age of 31 years in 1875 as an already published poet, he started working as a journalist. His dry sense of humor, style, and huge array of interests made him a popular editor and columnist quickly for The Daily Post, Time magazine and Fortnightly Review. Whilst working in London, he met and married Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang, his wife.
Interest in myths and folklore continued as he and Leonora traveled through France and Italy to hear local legends, from which came the most famous The Rainbow Fairy Books . In the late 19th century, interest in the native stories declined and very few persons recounting them for young readers. In fact, some educationalists attacked harmful magical stories in general to children. To challenge this notion, Lang first began collecting stories for the first of his colored volumes.
Lang gathered already recorded stories, while other folklorists collected stories directly from source. He used his time to collect a much greater breadth over the world from Jacob Grimm, his brother, Madame d'Aulnoy, and other less well sources.
Lang also worked as the editor, often credited as its sole creator for his work despite the essential support of his wife, who transcribed and organised the translation of the text, to the success.
He published to wide acclaim. The beautiful illustrations and magic captivated the minds of children and adults alike. The success first allowed Lang and Leonora to carry on their research and in 1890 to publish a much larger print run of The Red Fairy Book , which drew on even more sources. Between 1889 and 1910, they published twelve collections, which, each with a different colored binding, collected, edited and translated a total of 437 stories. Lang, credited with reviving interest in folklore, more importantly revolutionized the Victorian view and inspired generations of parents to begin reading them to children once more.
Last Works
Lang produced and at the same time continued a wide assortment of novels, literary criticism, articles, and poetry. As Anita Silvey, literary critic, however, noted, "The irony of Lang's life and work is that although he wrote for a profession... he is best recognized for the works he did not write," the folk stories that he collected.
He finished not the last Highways and Byways of the Border but died.
Andrew Gabriel Lang, a prolific Scotsman of letters, contributed poetry, novels, literary criticism, and collected now best folklore.
The Young Scholar and Journalist
Andrew Gabriel Lang, the son of the town clerk and the eldest of eight children, lived in Selkirk in the Scottish borderlands. The wild and beautiful landscape of childhood greatly affected the youth and inspired a lifelong love of the outdoors and a fascination with local folklore and history. Charles Edward Stuart and Robert I the Bruce surrounded him in the borders, a rich area in history. He later achieved his literary Short History of Scotland .
A gifted student and avid reader, Lang went to the prestigious Saint Andrews University, which now holds a lecture series in his honor every few years, and then to Balliol College, Oxford. He later published Oxford: Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes about the city in 1880.
Moving to London at the age of 31 years in 1875 as an already published poet, he started working as a journalist. His dry sense of humor, style, and huge array of interests made him a popular editor and columnist quickly for The Daily Post, Time magazine and Fortnightly Review. Whilst working in London, he met and married Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang, his wife.
Interest in myths and folklore continued as he and Leonora traveled through France and Italy to hear local legends, from which came the most famous The Rainbow Fairy Books . In the late 19th century, interest in the native stories declined and very few persons recounting them for young readers. In fact, some educationalists attacked harmful magical stories in general to children. To challenge this notion, Lang first began collecting stories for the first of his colored volumes.
Lang gathered already recorded stories, while other folklorists collected stories directly from source. He used his time to collect a much greater breadth over the world from Jacob Grimm, his brother, Madame d'Aulnoy, and other less well sources.
Lang also worked as the editor, often credited as its sole creator for his work despite the essential support of his wife, who transcribed and organised the translation of the text, to the success.
He published to wide acclaim. The beautiful illustrations and magic captivated the minds of children and adults alike. The success first allowed Lang and Leonora to carry on their research and in 1890 to publish a much larger print run of The Red Fairy Book , which drew on even more sources. Between 1889 and 1910, they published twelve collections, which, each with a different colored binding, collected, edited and translated a total of 437 stories. Lang, credited with reviving interest in folklore, more importantly revolutionized the Victorian view and inspired generations of parents to begin reading them to children once more.
Last Works
Lang produced and at the same time continued a wide assortment of novels, literary criticism, articles, and poetry. As Anita Silvey, literary critic, however, noted, "The irony of Lang's life and work is that although he wrote for a profession... he is best recognized for the works he did not write," the folk stories that he collected.
He finished not the last Highways and Byways of the Border but died.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 4, 2022
A good fairytale is always fun to read and this book contains two classics from Andrew Lang. They tell of the adventures of Prince Prigio and of his son, Prince Ricardo. There are dragons and wishes and curses and, of course, fairies, making for the kind of reading any middle grade or adult reader would enjoy.
The first tale is all about Prince Prigio, a boy who is born to a Queen who doesn’t believe in fairies. At the baby’s christening, the fairies arrive but while most of them give the boy magical gifts, one bitter fairy curses him and says,
My child, you shall be too clever!
The disbelieving Queen throws all the magical gifts in a storage room while the young prince grows up with the final fairy’s curse. He does believe himself cleverer than all others, which becomes bad news for the family. His father fears the young lad plus the prince’s younger brothers end up having to fight a firedrake in his stead, simply because he doesn’t believe in dragons. Well! The young man needs to grow up and find some willpower fairly quickly.
The second tale is that of Prigio’s son, who is the opposite of his father. Whereas Prigio loves books, Ricardo loves adventures. It’s a case of the father repeating his own father’s mistakes and the son overcoming great obstacles to be successful.
These were fun stories to read as Andrew Lang inserted some notable morals among all the goings-on. Lang was well known for his books about fairies but here the humans take the central roles. It would be a good book to read to younger children, but it’s spot-on for the middle grade group who still want to believe in magic even as they begin to doubt everything else. I am also a fan of David R. Godine publishers in general. Their physical books are truly solid with reinforced binding and lovely display type. The bonus is with the illustrations by Jeanne Titherington, whose soft drawings make one believe in giants without heads. This is a book to be collected and shared with other generations while re-learning life lessons along the way.
Book Season = Winter (dens of ogres)
The first tale is all about Prince Prigio, a boy who is born to a Queen who doesn’t believe in fairies. At the baby’s christening, the fairies arrive but while most of them give the boy magical gifts, one bitter fairy curses him and says,
My child, you shall be too clever!
The disbelieving Queen throws all the magical gifts in a storage room while the young prince grows up with the final fairy’s curse. He does believe himself cleverer than all others, which becomes bad news for the family. His father fears the young lad plus the prince’s younger brothers end up having to fight a firedrake in his stead, simply because he doesn’t believe in dragons. Well! The young man needs to grow up and find some willpower fairly quickly.
The second tale is that of Prigio’s son, who is the opposite of his father. Whereas Prigio loves books, Ricardo loves adventures. It’s a case of the father repeating his own father’s mistakes and the son overcoming great obstacles to be successful.
These were fun stories to read as Andrew Lang inserted some notable morals among all the goings-on. Lang was well known for his books about fairies but here the humans take the central roles. It would be a good book to read to younger children, but it’s spot-on for the middle grade group who still want to believe in magic even as they begin to doubt everything else. I am also a fan of David R. Godine publishers in general. Their physical books are truly solid with reinforced binding and lovely display type. The bonus is with the illustrations by Jeanne Titherington, whose soft drawings make one believe in giants without heads. This is a book to be collected and shared with other generations while re-learning life lessons along the way.
Book Season = Winter (dens of ogres)
August 14, 2008
This was NOT published in 2008, but rather in the early 1900s. The images are hand painted, the paper is gilted and the cover is very specific to the time.
I do Book Divining each night with this. Meaning - I open a page and blindly lay my finger upon a phrase. I then read it to see if there is a message contained to summarize the day. 9 out of 10...its pretty accurate!
I hope to sit and read this cover to cover as the stories are filled with mystical images, not to mention cultural references to the Celtic nations. mmmm. This is a hot cocoa or warmed mead type of book. Yummy!
I do Book Divining each night with this. Meaning - I open a page and blindly lay my finger upon a phrase. I then read it to see if there is a message contained to summarize the day. 9 out of 10...its pretty accurate!
I hope to sit and read this cover to cover as the stories are filled with mystical images, not to mention cultural references to the Celtic nations. mmmm. This is a hot cocoa or warmed mead type of book. Yummy!
April 23, 2021
There were two stories in this fairy tale book, and while I liked the first, I thought the second was really long and drawn out for no real reason. It could have been a three star book if the pacing of the second story wasn't so terrible.
September 2, 2020
Found this as I was gathering up ancient children's books to pass along to the local elementary school library. Don't remember ever reading it as a kid, so sat down and became happily enchanted for a few evenings as I read myself to sleep with the stories of Prince Prigio (yes, he is a definite "prig"--aka an arrogant know-it-all) It's "my own" because this is in fact the only fairy book that Andrew Lang himself actually composed. All those others that bear his name --the Red, the Blue, the Green, the Violet, the Pink Fairy Book, et alia--were in fact collected and retold by Andrew Lang's wife who doesn't get a mention, one assumes because this was the Nineteenth Century and she was a (gasp) female. Andrew himself did do the illustration and got these books published. All these color books are wonderful retellings of fairy tales from around the world, not so popular as Grimm's but good nevertheless. I read them all once upon a time, as did my children. And this one was good too--not a retelling, but it demonstrates Andrew did pay attention to what his wife was up to.
October 3, 2024
I bought this book on a recent trip to Nova Scotia. I have never read a book written by Andrew Lang before, although I do have some of the story collections. I read the first story and I was not impressed. The second story, however, was more interesting and kept me wanting to read more. Lang didn’t know how to the story, I suspect, and rushed the end of the story, leaving a lot of unanswered questions.
June 21, 2017
Tolkien himself recommended this one. Very similar in tone and style to The Hobbit. There are two stories, each focusing on a young prince of successive generations in the titular kingdom of Pantouflia. They are morality tales told with dry humour, and the moral is always: be inquisitive, be mischievous, and never discount the power of myth.
September 20, 2020
I had read this a couple of times as a child and wondered what it would be like to read it again. I managed to get hold of a second hand copy and quite enjoyed it. It is two fairy stories with a twist and is quite charming.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews