Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales

This is the colour, hardback collector's edition of this famous volume of fairytales. This volume is a treasure chest of classic Eastern tales drawing on the rich folklore of Turkey.

Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales has not been in print for almost 100 years, mainly because the original edition had lavish production standards.

On the used market, mint copies of the 1913 original can cost up to four figures.

This volume is appropriately titled Fairy Tales because something definitely 'fairy' occurs.

There are talking animals, flying horses, birds that magically change into beautiful maidens, quests to win the hand of a princess, magical objects, simple, yet brave, peasants, wizards, witches, dragons and dungeons, epic journeys, and loveable fools.

The majority of these stories contain encounters with 'Dews', or Turkish supernatural beings, better known in the West as 'Genies.' Sometimes the Turkish Dews are also called 'Arabs!' There are many other specifically Turkish elements and references in the stories, for which the glossary at the end of the book is of particular help. So this isn't simply an orientalised set of European Tales, but was drawn from an authentic Turkish oral storytelling tradition by Dr. Ignacz Kunos . Plus, there are almost 200 illustrations exquisitely crafted by Willy Pogany.

We have reproduced Willy Pogany's illustrations to the best of our ability.

Where the colour plates have been available we have faithfully reproduced these.

Bearing in mind we have not had access to the original plates, we have pushed the technology to hand as far as it has been possible in the reproduction of these images.

We hope you won't be disappointed with our efforts. It must be remembered the book was originally produced in 1913 when the world's attitudes towards racial tolerance and acceptance were quite different to those of today.

As such some of the language and terminology is dated and in some cases archaic. Some terminology, especially when describing or referring to other races, is not what we would use in the 21st C.

But for the sake of authenticity and in order to stay true to the original work, these have been left in situ.

Likewise, some of the illustrations could also be considered unsuitable by 21st C. standards because they can be considered as caricatures with obvious ethnic stereotypes. However, in most cases, the illustrator is portraying imaginary creatures, which are supposed to be grotesque.

The publisher asks the reader to not be offended but to accept that this was how people spoke, wrote and behaved a century ago.