#madame villeneuve’s unabridged version of beauty and the beast

[famouslysleepy]

THE PRINCE’S BACKSTORY YALL

Okay so first, i’m gonna get into spoiler territory since i’m pretty sure most of you have likely actually not read/listen to a translation of Villeneuve’s original unabridged tale. So, I’m gonna keep my points under the read more below.

Because it’s somehow over the several past months become somewhat important to me that y’all go become blindsided by the Prince’s backstory the same way I was okay?

1. I need you to understand the level of fucked upittude surrounding this guy and the fairies in Villeneuve’s tale okay???

2. okay so you know the evil fairy? not ONLY did she cursed him at 15 she cursed him when he refused her marriage proposal!!! EVEN WORSE WAS THAT SHE WAS HIS GOVERNESS WHILE HIS MOTHER WAS AWAY AT WAR

3. HE USED TO CALL HER MOTHER AT ONE POINT!!! THAT IS SO FUCKED UP!! btw the prince definitely has like a BUNCH of abandonment issues because the evil fairy ditch him for like a year straight she came back and proposed, like his mother figure left him then came back acting Different, His actual mother hasn’t seen him in like 14 years (i don’t even think she wrote him letters??) his dad was dead before he was born

4. his real mother the Queen as i mentioned before was away leading a war for basically his entire childhood until he turned 15

5. but because the war was over and she finally came back to him no HE came over to her and help FIGHT in the war so he could ask her to *formally* refuse the Evil Fairy’s request

6. okay the good fairy is fairly chill all things considered but there are still some weird moments with her regardless like near the end of the book when the curse is broken after he thanks her and hugs his mother for the first time in implied years(??) the good fairy ordered him to not speak to beauty while the whole time discussing with his mother his allowance to even marry beauty???

7. which by the queen doesn’t want her to marry beauty due to her class level being so low

8. and there a pregnant pause and the humans in the group await in fear of her reaction as their she might be a bit pissed at the queen for even caring about status and might turn all her good fortune right around on them for it

9. she thankfully doesn’t but like wtf??? what an unsettling pause

10. i like won’t get into because it’s like 2:47 am rn but truthfully i could write an actual essay on the prince having debatably the LEAST amount of agency of all the characters despite beauty’s whole arrangement dictating that she be here as a unwillingly member to some degree

but like god i’m obsessed with this fella i’m literally making a retell kinda story set in the immediate aftermath of the beast turning back into the prince in my downtime heavily inspired by Villeneuve and Beaumont’s tales because i just cannot stop thinking about this story

i wanna buy this book at some point and then later buy the untranslated version and forced myself word by word to learn how to read old timey french from it but yeah i’m positively insane about this book and my new shiny blorbo

[emilysidhe]

I'm in love with your beauty & the beast post. Can you tell me where I can get my hands on the earlier BatB? Is there a particular book and/or edition you would recommend?

I am absolutely certain that I read this for free (in English) online a couple of years ago, but I can’t find it anymore and I suspect that it may have been taken down.  The original French is public domain, but all the translations I’ve found seem to be new enough to be protected by copyright.  However, it looks like there was a new unabridged translation in 2014 that got pretty good reviews on Amazon and is only $2 for the Kindle version:

https://www.amazon.com/Madame-Villeneuves-Story-Beauty-Beast-ebook/dp/B00I9IEK9M/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1491488752&sr=8-1&keywords=gabrielle+villeneuve

[thenightling]

PSA about Beauty and the Beast

PSA about Beauty and the Beast:

Recently I have seen some strange posts along the lines of “Why can’t they follow the original dark ending?  Why does Disney have to give it a Happy ending?” in regard to Beauty and the Beast.

I decided to get to the bottom of this and found there is an old Internet rumor that the original Beauty and the Beast ended with either the death of The Beast or The Beast eating Belle.  Whoever started this rumor is confusing Beauty and the Beast for the oldest version of Little Red Riding Hood also known as Little Red Riding Cap (from 1693).

The version of Beauty and the Beast that is the popular fairy tale is an abridged and revised version of the surprisingly feminist 1740 French novel La Belle et la Bête by Madame  Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve.  (It talks about a woman’s right to choose a husband, and The Prince’s mother was a Queen who lead an army to defend her kingdom).

No version of Beauty and the Beast exists in which The Beast eats Belle (Beauty) or where The Beast dies and stays dead.  There are versions where the evil faery haunts Belle with dreams that The Beast will bring her ruin if not kill her and there are versions where Belle’s sisters conspire to try to get the Beast to eat her but it never happens.  The Beast comes close to death or briefly dies but he never once stays dead. That version simply does not exist.   This Internet rumor needs to stop.

If you doubt me you can buy the original novel on Amazon translated by Rachel Louise Lawrence, completely unabridged or you can check out the book The Classic Fairy Tales by Iona and Peter Opie which gives the full history of many of the classic fairy tales and their various alternate versions.

The darkest thing about the original Beauty and the Beast novel is that the faery who raised The Prince (because his mother was off fighting a war) tried to seduce him as soon as he was of age and Belle (who discovers her mother was actually a faery and father was actually a king, she had only believed the merchant to be her father) and the Beast turned out to be cousins.   And yes, they marry.

The faery tale that originally ended in the death of the protagonist was Little Red Riding Cap.   The Little mermaid ended in death too but that was Hans Christian Anderson, not Madame de Villeneuve.

Also just because we are used to things ending tragically doesn’t mean it should.  Think how cynical the world has become where enchanted castles and faeries aren’t what we consider far fetched but simply the idea of things ending well and yet things sometimes do end well in the real world.  It’s not actually realistic to expect everything to always end poorly.   Sometimes things really do end happily.

[famouslysleepy]

Beauty’s dad is such a coward of an individual, like despite his blatant favoritism towards beauty he still willingly lets her sacrifice herself for him beast in his stead.

He even acknowledges to himself on the ride back home that only a cowardly father would even consider the idea of trading off one of his daughter to the beast. Because here’s the thing their both under the full impression that beauty to riding off to her fucking death for this trade off. and for the next several months before Beauty can finally visit her family again, they all fully believed her to be dead.

Like his SONS gave more of a shit about stopping this tyrannical beast from taking her, these lads were ready to gear up and kill the beast themselves so be it!!

like this guy is just shit dad fr i’m kinda loving it

[famouslysleepy]

ya know after reading a translated and unabridged version of Madame Villeneuve’s Beauty and the Beast aka the oldest known written variation on the tale

i cant help but now give a little side eye to all those adaptions that gave the beast a dead mom and mean dad for added backstory depth

[thenightling]

The confusion about the Beauty and The Beast books

There seems to be some confusion about "The books of Beauty and the Beast." Here I will try to explain the differences. 1.  Original novel:  First we have the original 1740 novel by Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve.  It's about two hundred pages long and has eleven chapters.  This is a very pro-feminist novel dealing with a woman's right to choose her husband without the consent of her parents. Briefly addresses a Warrior General Queen, and Belle is already the book lover of the Disney film.   The biggest difference here is Belle is revealed later to be secretly the child of a faery and a King and only thought the merchant was her father.  Villeneuve is now being given as the name of Belle's home town for the 2017 Beauty and the Beast movie in honor of the original novelist.  

Here is a great unabridged edition of the original novel in English for those who need it / want it. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1502992973/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 2.  The Fairy tale version: The fairy tale version by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont.  Many mistakenly give this woman credit as the original author of Beauty and the Beast, including the writing credit in the 2017 Beauty and the Beast movie (See main credit page on IMDB).   Jeane-Marie abridged and revised the novel to fit within about twenty pages of a "girls magazine" and this became the more well known version of Beauty and the Beast.  As this was before the era of modern Copyright she has been mistakenly credited as the original author for many years, especially by those who did not know the story started off as a full length novel.  One difference between this version and the novel being that Belle is no longer secretly the child of a faery and her love of reading isn't directly addressed, nor is The Prince's parental backstory (goodbye General Queen Mother). https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1910880051/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 3. The Tie-in books:  These books are "fan fiction" of the new 2017 film sold by Disney either giving "what if" scenarios or extended and exaggerated stories that do not exit in the new film.  These book are non-Canon but Disney sells them anyway. 4.  Novelization:  The official Novelization of the 2017 film.   The word Novelization specifically applies here. The "ization" part means "transformed into."  So you have something "turned into a novel."  In this case it's the film's screenplay (Script) transformed into a novel format (Chapter book). This particular book was released two days ago. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1484781007/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 And there you go.  This should resolve some confusion.

[thenightling]

Reading the original Beauty and the Beast

So I got a hold of an unabridged translation of the original Beauty and the Beast novel and it’s very good.  

I had read the original faery tale before but there are some big differences in the novel.

The popular faery tale version is an abridged and revised version by Jeanne-Marie Le Prince De Beaumont.

Before that revised version there was the novel by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve AKA Madame de Villeneuve. 

The shortened version (as copied from Wikipedia:

A wealthy, widowed merchant lives in a mansion with his six children, three sons and three daughters. All his daughters are very beautiful, but the youngest, (Belle / Beauty. I prefer calling her Belle since that was her original French name, despite what it translates into), is the most lovely, as well as kind, well-read and pure of heart; while the two elder sisters, in contrast, are wicked, selfish, vain and spoiled. They secretly taunt Beauty and treat her more like a servant than a sister. The merchant eventually loses all of his wealth in a tempest at sea. He and his children are consequently forced to live in a small farmhouse and work for their living.

After some years of this, the merchant hears that one of the trade ships he had sent off has arrived back in port, having escaped the destruction of its compatriots. He returns to the city to discover whether it contains anything valuable. Before leaving, he asks his children if they wish for him to bring any gifts back for them. The sons ask for weaponry and horses to hunt with, whereas his oldest daughters ask for clothing, jewels and the finest dresses possible, thinking his wealth has returned. Beauty is satisfied with the promise of a rose, as none grow in their part of the country. The merchant, to his dismay, finds that his ship's cargo has been seized to pay his debts, leaving him without money to buy his children their presents.

During his return, the merchant becomes lost in a forest during a storm. Seeking shelter, he enters a dazzling palace. A hidden figure opens the giant doors and silently invites him in. The merchant finds tables inside laden with food and drink, which seem to have been left for him by the palace's invisible owner. The merchant accepts this gift and spends the night there. The next morning as the merchant is about to leave, he sees a rose garden and recalls that Beauty had desired a rose. Upon picking the loveliest rose he can find, the merchant is confronted by a hideous "Beast" which tells him that for taking his most precious possession after accepting his hospitality, the merchant must die. The merchant begs to be set free, arguing that he had only picked the rose as a gift for his youngest daughter. The Beast agrees to let him give the rose to Beauty, but only if the merchant or one of his daughters will return.

The merchant is upset, but accepts this condition. The Beast sends him on his way, with wealth, jewels and fine clothes for his sons and daughters, and stresses that Beauty must never know about his deal. The merchant, upon arriving home, tries to hide the secret from Beauty, but she pries it from him. Her brothers say they will go to the castle and fight the Beast, but the merchant dissuades them, saying they will stand no chance against the monster. Beauty accepts responsibility for her actions and willingly goes to the Beast's castle. The Beast receives her graciously and informs her that she is now mistress of the castle, and he is her servant. He gives her lavish clothing and food and carries on lengthy conversations with her. Every night, the Beast asks Beauty to marry him, only to be refused each time. After each refusal, Beauty dreams of a handsome prince who pleads with her to answer why she keeps refusing him, to which she replies that she cannot marry the Beast because she loves him only as a friend. Beauty does not make the connection between the handsome prince and the Beast and becomes convinced that the Beast is holding the prince captive somewhere in the castle. She searches and discovers multiple enchanted rooms, but never the prince from her dreams.

For several months, Beauty lives a life of luxury at the Beast's palace, having every whim catered to by invisible servants, with no end of riches to amuse her and an endless supply of exquisite finery to wear. Eventually, she becomes homesick and begs the Beast to allow her to go see her family. He allows it on the condition that she returns exactly a week later. Beauty agrees to this and sets off for home with an enchanted mirror and ring. The mirror allows her to see what is going on back at the Beast's castle, and the ring allows her to return to the castle in an instant when turned three times around her finger. Her older sisters are surprised to find her well fed and dressed in finery. Beauty tries to share the magnificent gowns and jewels the Beast gave her with her sisters, but they turn into rags' at her sisters' touch, and are restored to their splendour when returned to Beauty, as the Beast meant them only for her. Her sisters are envious when they hear of her happy life at the castle, and, hearing that she must return to the Beast on a certain day, beg her to stay another day, even putting onion in their eyes to make it appear as though they are weeping. They hope that the Beast will be angry with Beauty for breaking her promise and eat her alive. Beauty's heart is moved by her sisters' false show of love, and she agrees to stay.

Beauty begins to feel guilty about breaking her promise to the Beast and uses the mirror to see him back at the castle. She is horrified to discover that the Beast is lying half-dead from heartbreak near the rose bushes her father had stolen from and she immediately uses the ring to return to the Beast.

Beauty weeps over the Beast, saying that she loves him. When her tears strike him, the Beast is transformed into the handsome prince from Beauty's dreams. The Prince informs her that long ago a fairy turned him into a hideous beast, after he refused to let her in from the rain, and that only by finding true love, despite his ugliness, could the curse be broken. He and Beauty are married and they live happily ever after together.

___________________________________________ 

    The faery tale leaves out a lot from the novel that probably should have been left in.  For starters the novel goes into Belle’s backstory as well as The Beast.  They are cousins by blood (because they are both related via royal blood line) and Belle is actually a changeling faery, a faery that was raised among humans, thinking herself human. 

    The Beast was a prince who lost his father at a young age, and whose mother waged war to protect the kingdom. The Queen left him in care of an evil fairy, who tried to seduce him when he was old enough (after raising him).  When he refused to sleep with his adopted mother (Eww) she transformed him into a Beast out of spite.

Belle is not really a merchant's daughter but the offspring of a king and a good fairy.  The evil fairy (same one that cursed the Beast) had tried to murder Belle when she was a baby and wanted to marry her father the king (What a lecherous bitch).  And Belle was put in the place of the merchant's dead daughter to protect her, growing up thinking that the merchant was her father.

Something else that was left out of the fairy tale version is the political commentary.   The novel was written in 1740 and speaks heavily about a woman’s right to choose a husband (usually it was ultimately the parents choice back then, particularly in France, where the novel was written).   It also talks about social status and how once the family became poor they were abandoned by so-called friends, and Belle’s siblings suitors (from before they became poor) also left them as they had only wanted to marry them for their money.   There’s actually a lot of social commentary, including how difficult it is for people used to the city to adjust to country life (Belle’s singing about the “poor provincial town” really fits here only the country home was a lot more isolated and lonely in the novel, no densely populated town to walk around in.)

I know it was probably pure happenstance but I do like that Once Upon a Time made it that Rumplestiltskin (who is also used as The Beast on the show) was the child of a faery raised among humans instead of Belle (especially since Rumplestiltskin in his original faery tale IS a type of faery but that’s another matter...).  Did someone actually read the original Beauty and the Beast novel or was this really a coincidence!?