Selected Fairy Tales

My second-hand copy of this book is one I bought some years ago at the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan. The author was not one I knew. The book sat unread on my shelves of folk and fairy tales until one day this fall I picked it up and read the introduction. There the author (who I believe is still alive) describes serving by night in England over fifty years before during the Blitz as a fire watcher guarding building from incendiary bombs. In the intervals when there were no attacks, she passed her time writing fairy tales. This caught my interest and I began reading the stories. The first was the last in the book "Count Bertrand" about an utterly unlovable man who defies Death. I was hooked and read each of the sixteen stories. Usually I read one before going to sleep. Sometimes I cheated and read two. No two were alike. Each one was a surprise. The prose was clear and evocative. The characters, from the Sea King's Daughter to the South West Wind were unforgettable. For a few years after the war Barbara Leonie Picard continued to write these tales until she turned to other projects. Beginning in the late '40's she published story collections that eventually included all fifty of the tales she had written. The sixteen included here are the author's own selection from those earlier volumes. Once I had finished these I wanted to read them all. One of those old collections is in the mail right now as a Holiday present to myself. See if this doesn't happen to you.