Name: Beauty and the Beast
Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
ISBN: 9780866986274

Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot Gallon Villeneuve

"English translation of the original version of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, written in the mid-eighteenth century by the French noblewoman Madame de Villeneuve, whose authorship was forgotten as the tale was elaborated and transformed over the next 250 years"--

The Original Story

Beauty and the Beast

Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve

Beauty and the Beast is a magical tale of love, understanding, and triumph. Late one night a merchant becomes lost in the woods and stumbles upon a seemingly deserted castle. Hungry and tired, he enters the castle and finds a feast laid out on a grand table. Finding no one else in the castle, he eats the food himself. In the morning as he leaves he finds a beautiful rose bush in the garden and picks a single flower for his daughter Belle. Suddenly a beast appears and tells him he must die for abusing his hospitality. The merchant explains that he only picked the rose for his daughter. The Beast makes a deal with him that he can take the rose and other riches back to his daughter but only if he agrees to return and does not tell his daughter of the deal. The merchant agrees and makes his way home. He is unable to keep this terrible secret from Belle and when she finds out she returns to the Castle in his place. This is a wonderfully enchanting story, from the opening Once Upon a Time until the final Happily Ever After. A story your children will cherish for years.

Nicole Vanderbilt

This is the first published version of Beauty and the Beast, written by the French author Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in the mid-18th century and translated by James Robinson Planche. It is a novel-length story intended for adult readers, addressing the issues of the marriage system of the day in which women had no right to choose their husband or to refuse to marry. There is also a wealth of rich back story as to how the Prince became cursed and revelations about Beauty's parentage, which fail to appear in subsequent versions of the now classic fairy tale.

Beauty and the Beast The Original Story

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