Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version by Philip Pullman

This collection of fairy tales is selected from the Grimm brothers' final 1857 anthology of fairy tales. Pullman has translated (and in some cases adapted) the stories to tell what he considers to be the best fairy tale. There are a lot of familiar tales and a number of unfamiliar ones too--and all of them are classified and given a place in folklore through helpful end notes. These fairy tales have their own standards--their standards are not those of modern literature, for example--and they rely heavily on a system that rewards and punishes characters for their actions. At times the stories are gruesome, at times unrealistic, and at times they do not take the familiar routes to the stories, but this collection is well-worth a read.