Moonfolk: A True Account Of The Home Of The Fairy Tales

by Jane G. Austin

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

First published January 1, 1874

About the author

Jane Goodwin Austin, born Mary Jane Goodwin, was an American writer, notable for being the author of 24 books and numerous short stories.

Jane G. Austin was a Pilgrims specialist. The Austin part of her name comes from her marriage, in 1850, to Loring Henry Austin.

Reviews

[Wreade1872 · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was really quite good. I didn’t really think it had a story as such, its about someone being led around to these different places and people with a fair bit of moral judgments being strewn about.
Then i was like.. that vague plot seems familiar.. oh yes, its Dante's Inferno :lol . Instead of dante being led around hell by Virgil you have a little girl called Rhoda being led around the lands of fiction by the Chimney Elf :) .

So written in 1874, and this is doing what the likes of Fables or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen have done and amalgamated all of fiction.
Which has just got to be the earliest attempt at something like that i have to believe.
Now it doesn't have too much actual Novel reference points, only two i think both 17th century. However it does include other non fairytale references which i won’t spoil.
I thought it had an Alice in Wonderland reference (which was published prior to this) but the Knave of Hearts who stole the tarts is actually an old nursery rhyme reused by Carroll and this book.

So it starts out and is clearly for children, including most of the references being nursery rhyme and fairytale however the author just can't stop herself. The best bit of this is all the moral judgment and commentary that comes down on these fictional characters and its not straight forward moralizing, its practically satire.
Also a lot of it feels like it would go over the heads of children. Then again they probably had a different breed of child back in the 1870’s.

So anyway its not like super amazing but as one of the earliest attempts at fiction amalgamation combined with its somewhat biting views on the character of fictional characters :P , i felt combined earned the 4th star.

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