Introduction: Alison Lurie, a professor at Cornell University wrote the preface. She sums up a hundred years of American Fairy Tales and introduces the stories in two pages.

Organization: There is a table of contents and the stories appear to be arranged chronologically. The illustrations by Michael McCurdy are simple black and white ink drawing and scratch boards that remind me of illustrations I saw in hundred year old periodicals.

The stories themselves: The stories vary as much as the authors. Some, like Feathertop, are quite literary. Here is an example sentence. "'Poor fellow!' quothe Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her ill-fated contrivance." As written, these stories may be better read than told. The stories are also fairly long so a teller might need to trim them.

Source Notes: Each story starts with a lengthy source note that includes some critique and history. The Afterword by Neil Phillip is long, detailed, and scholarly. Phillip states that he chose to look at literary tales with a named author for this collection. He critiques and puts the stories into their historical framework. He looks at the broad changes seen in the hundred years that he covers.

Final Thoughts: This is a very scholarly look at American fairy tales. Sadly, most Americans are probably not familiar with more than one or two of these stories. This book would make an excellent text book for a high school or college English class and should be required reading.