Product Description

A reissue of a collection of short stories first published ten years ago. They include "The Company of Wolves", on which the prize-winning film of the same name was based. Angela Carter is the author of "Nights at the Circus" and "The Magic Toyshop".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6350 in Books
• Published on: 1990-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Review
Carter relates traditional fairy tales through her own unique perspective. The mind of the modern feminist unravels the mysteries of the subconscious and its related symbolism. (Kirkus UK)

Customer Reviews

Serendipity!
Years ago, I stumbled onto one of the short stories in this book in another anthology, and loved it. It was called the Erl-King, but I couldn't remember the author, and was never able to find it again. I ordered The Bloody Chamber for the retelling of the Bluebeard story, and was thrilled to find that the Erl-King was one of the other stories.

All the stories in this book are wonderful. They are all dark and bloody as any good fairy tale is, and beautifully written. I pined over the Erl-king for years, so it was a joy to reread it, and to find the other tales inside just as good.

waste of time
This is bad writing at its worst because it is apparent that it could have maybe been good.

The imagery is dull, cliché, and facile. The stories are predictable and, worst of all, uninteresting. Everything is over-stylized, obvious, and with very little sense of anything novel or surprising. In reality, they are unintelligent and prepubescent. In general, a waste of time.

Sexy twists on classic tales
My introduction to Angela Carter came from a Women's Literature course at school, where I was interested in this collection, but never actually got around to reading it. Several years later, I have finally read it. Carter writes with a flair for imagery and beautifully poetic prose. The first two stories (The Bloody Chamber and The Courtship of Mr. Lyon) are amongst the best in this short, but powerful, collection. Puss-in-Boots is the only piece that seems to drag, even though it is still a relatively short story. Towards the end of the book, Carter has several stories that deal with wolves, the best being The Company of Wolves and Wolf-Alice, but each is worthy of inclusion. Many of these twists on fairy tales have a sexual assurance that seems to have a feminist slant, but not exclusively. These stories have been crafted to create discussion amongst readers and comparisons to the original source materials seems inevitable, but these solidly crafted tales stand alone as examples of fine short stories in their own right.