The Origin of the Fays
Edited, introduced & translated by Brian Stableford
Stories by Louise Cavelier, Charles-Antoine Coypel, Catherine Durand, Marianne-Agnès Falques, Marie-Madeleine de Lubert, François-Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif, Charles Pinot Duclos, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Carl Gustaf Tessin.
cover by Mike Hoffman
“Return to mortals,” said the god Apollo, “and since they are unjust enough to treat fays as imaginary, I give you the ability to disabuse them.”
As the contes de fées suffered a decline in fashionability in the 1750s, they began to rely on hybridization with Oriental and Medieval fantasies.
The thirteen stories collected in this volume may be replete with fays, ogres, magic swords and other motifs, but they also revolve around a series of moral dilemmas, provided with fanciful magically-aided resolutions, although reflecting real philosophical debates of the times.
Among the philosophers and free thinkers who made a contribution to the genre and are included in this volume are the renowned Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swedish diplomat Count Carl Gustaf Tessin, Charles Duclos and François-Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif two members of the French Academy, and the exiled defrocked nun Marianne-Agnès Falques, who assisted William Beckford on Vathek.
Catherine Durand: The Fay Lubantine
The Prodigy of Amour
The Origin of the Fays
Louise Cavelier: The Prince of Aquamarines
Prince Typhon and Princess Sensible
Cornichon and Toupette
Charles Pinot Duclos: Acajou and Zirphile
Carl Gustaf Tessin: Faunillane; or. The Yellow Child
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Queen Fantasque
François-Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif: The Gifts of the Fays; or, The Power of Education
Marianne-Agnès Falques: Durboulour; or, The Benevolent Lioness