East of the Sun and West of the Moon
Old Tales From the North - Illustrated
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- 3,49 €
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- 3,49 €
Publisher Description
This edition of East of the Sun and West of the Moon contains the original illustrations by Kay Nielsen which made this collection of fairy stories much-loved and treasured.
Classic tales of Nordic and Norwegian myth abound magically within this book, which was compiled and written by Peter Christen Asbjornsen. Having received over 10 translations into English, it is this rendition by George Webbe Dascent which sits among the best regarded for its vivid and majestic approach to the dialogue and scenes comprising this classic Nordic fairy story. The tale involves a wife's search for her lost husband through an icy landscape full of mystical creatures and beings, such as the troll princess and the White Bear.
In addition to being a sensual and fascinating read, these tales also have importance among scholars who examine story structures. The story has also received multiple adaptations for the screen, with the general themes having transposed themselves to other productions too.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This expansively illustrated edition of a well-loved epic romance, told here in Sir George Webbe Dasent's 1859 translation from the Norwegian, has lost none of its Gothic beauty and irresistible power. Dasent's translation is a real page-turner, told in a relaxed, conversational style that manages to be at once soothing and suspenseful. Readers will follow eagerly the plight of the beautiful, unnamed lassie, who must travel to a far-off kingdom to rescue her beloved prince from the clutches of an evil--and very ugly--bride. Only a rather swift resolution sounds a slightly jarring note in the otherwise engrossing tale. Lynch's sweeping paintings in dark greens and browns, with their large close-ups and exciting shifts in perspective, expertly capture the story's heroic scale. Several spreads are especially noteworthy: the dizzying bird's-eye-view of the heroine and her bear, dwarfed by the palace's massive architecture; the North Wind, rising from the mists like a bearded Old Testament patriarch, carrying the speck of a girl on his back as the seas roil below. The book's lavish endpapers, in the style of an Old World cartographer, point the way to this enticing kingdom east o' the sun and west o' the moon. Ages 4-up.
