The stories of magic and transformation that we call fairy tales are one of the oldest known forms of literature, and also one of the most popular and enduring. While most people think of the fairy tale as having come into existence almost magically long ago, they are in fact still being created. And while they are principally directed to children and have child protagonists, these modern fairy tales, like the classics, have messages to those of all ages. In The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales, editor Alison Lurie collects such modern stories of the late nineteenth century up to the present. Here are trolls and princesses, magic and mayhem, morals to be told and lessons to be learned--all the elements of the classic fairy tale, in new and marvelous stories. Including the works of Charles Dickens, Nathaniel Hawthorne, George MacDonald, Mary De Morgan, H G Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joan Aiken, Carl Sandburg, Angela Carter, James Thurber, Louise Erdrich, and many more, here is a treasury of tales that, though set in an unreal and irrelevant universe, have much to tell us about the real world in which we live.