#la bibliothèque des génies et des fées

[adarkrainbow]

Le Cabinet’s continuation: La Bibliothèque des Génies

Now that you heard of the existence of Le Cabinet des Fées, you will probably be curious to look into it. The ultimate collection of French fairytales? Count me in! You’ll rush towards your library or try to order at your local bookshop... And you’ll be quite disappointed to find it nowhere.

Except maybe in antique bookshops, or some corners of the Internet specialized in old books. 

You see, as I said Le Cabinet des Fées was published at the end of the fairytale golden era. It acted as a kind of “grave” for the genre, and so the common people, the general audience, wasn’t actually interested in reading all those fairytales anymore. Le Cabinet des Fées only truly interested experts at literature, fairytale fans, or people passionate about the era these stories belonged to. As a result, copies of The Cabinet could only be found in private libraries and expensive collections.

It also didn’t help that it was... you know 41 VOLUMES. It was a huge collection, and so it was very costly, which explains the limited publications and re-editions. In fact... for centuries now there hasn’t been any complete re-edition of The Cabinet of Fairies. The only re-editions that existed were sparse and incomplete. Even the very recent re-edition of “Le Cabinet des Fées”, that got published a few years ago to match with the return of fairytales in the studies and programs of higher education is a condensed, fragmented edition with only a handful of fairytales for each author, so as to be able to sell just a few pocket-sized books.

If you actually want to read Le Cabinet des Fées in a more faithful and complete form, you can hopefully jump on the Internet Archive, which has a complete edition of The Cabinet - not in 41 volumes, but rather in 20 volumes (thanks to the progresses of printing and editing over a few centuries). Of course one needs to be able to read French. So that’s a bit problematic... 

But the main thing here is that Le Cabinet des Fées was never a popular work, it couldn’t be found by a mainstream audience, and it was never back to its full and complete original glory. Which saddened many people since it was a true goldmine when it came to fairytales studies...

... But a few years ago came out the new series of books I want to talk to you about. A professional-edition series called “La Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées”, The Library of Genies and Fairies.

The goal of this project was very clear: scholars and experts on fairytales gathered themselves with the intent of re-publishing, in modern days, Le Cabinet des Fées, but in a new, better form. Not only did they took back Le Cabinet in its original form, but they actually re-organized its content in a different series of twenty volumes, while also including additional tales not present in Le Cabinet. The explicit goal was to cover the actual entirety of the fairytales of the “golden era”, to have a full, truly “ultimate” corpus. For example, the Library includes new fairytales of the era that were rediscovered in modern days ; it also includes anonymous and/or manuscript fairytales that were never officially published until this day. It also brings back an entire subgenre of fairytales that were cut-off by Mayer himself, because he didn’t them included in his work (he didn’t deem them to be “actual” fairytales) - and this subgenre is the one of the “licentious fairytale”, mixing satirical, sardonic tales (or parody tales) with erotic fairytales. On top of all these new additions to form the “ultimate corpus”, each volume of the series also has introductons, annotations, appendix and analysis by experts of the various authors and time-periods touched upon by the collection. 

So, truly, this would be THE ultimate collection of French fairytales. 

And it might be... Though if you are an humble folk with a regular paycheck (or no paycheck at all, like me) you unfortunately should put this wonderful collection on the aside. Not only are they very big books, very tall, quite thick, quite heavy, but they are also quite costly. Between 100 and 130 dollars per book, roughly. Given there are twenty volumes... I’ll let you do the math. 

But... If I do not have the collection, I actually got a really nice little flyer which presents the full program and complete list of the collection. And I will be using this as a support for posts I intend to do later - because the new order of fairytales prepared by the Library of Genies is actually based on the history and chronology of the French fairytale during its “golden era”, with sub-divisions by type, time-period, sub-genre... So get ready to do some historical exploration later on. 

[emilie-the-fairy-melusine-blog]

Study’s corpus

Middle Age

Jean d’ARRAS, Mélusine ou La Noble Histoire de Lusignan, éd. Jean-Jacques Vincensini, Paris, Le Livre de Poche, Lettres Gothiques, 2003.

COUDRETTE, Le Roman de Mélusine, éd. Laurence Harf-Lancner, Paris, GF Flammarion, 1993.

Plays  18th centuries

FUZELIER, Louis, « Mélusine », Dictionnaire des théâtres de Paris contenant toutes les pièces qui ont été représentées jusqu'à présent sur les différents théâtres français, et sur celui de l'Académie royale de musique [en ligne], éd. Claude Parfaict, Paris, vol. 3, 1767, p. 379-393.

LE BRUN, Antoine-Louis, Théâtre lyrique : avec une préface où l'on traite du poème de l'opéra et une réponse à une épitre satyrique contre ce spectacle [en ligne], ed. Ribou Pierre, Paris, 1712, p. 125-154.

Novel and fairytales 17th/18th centuries

NODOT, François, Histoire de Mélusine Princesse de Lusignan et de ses fils, suivie de l’Histoire de Geofroy à la grand’dent [en ligne], éd. Favre, Paris, Champion, 1867.

Marguerite de LUBERT, ed. Aurélie Zygel-Basso. « La Princesse Camion » dans Contes, Honoré Champion, Print. Sources Classiques 60, 2005.

Marguerite de LUBERT, ed. Aurélie Zygel-Basso. « Le Prince Glacé et la Princesse Etincelante » dans Contes,Honoré Champion, Print. Sources Classiques 60, 2005.

MURAT, Henriette-Julie De Castelnau, ed. Geneviève Patard. « Anguillette » dans Contes, Honoré Champion, Print. Sources Classiques 72, 2006.

MURAT, Henriette-Julie De Castelnau, ed. Geneviève Patard. « Peine Perdue » dans Contes, Honoré Champion, Print. Sources Classiques 72, 2006.

Madame  d'AULNOY« Le Prince Lutin » dans Contes, Honoré Champion, Bibliothèques des génies et des fées, Paris, 2005. 

[adarkrainbow]

Hi! I wondered if you had anything (you probably do) on La belle et la bête ? Specifically looking for origins of the Mme Leprince de Beaumont one, but anything else goes :)

Hi! Well, unfortunately... Not much!

I know it sounds surprising but here's the thing... I do specialize in French literary fairytales of the golden age. But only 17th century... Beauty and the Beast belongs unfortunately to the 18th century fairytales, the "second generation" of French literary fairytales (or third if you count the Arabian Nights-era as the second generation). As a result I do not have a LOT of interesting info to share...

It is too bad because had you caught me six months earlier I had a copy out of the library of the Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées's volume dedicated to Leprince de Beaumont, which was one of the most complete things ever... Unfortunately I can't get it back for now... All I can suggest you so far is to check my "Beauty and the Beast" tag because I did reblog a LOT of interesting posts throughout the years made by other people WAY more knowledgeable than me.

On my own side all I can do so far is dig up in my own books see if I have any article Beauty and the Beast adjacent which could be of some use... Outside of this sorry, you knocked at the wrong door...