Born in 1650 to an aristocratic but scandal-plagued Normandy family, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville (later Madame d'Aulnoy) penned whimsical contes des fees, coining the name "fairy tales." In such stories as "The White Cat," "Belle-Belle," and "The Green Serpent," we see such now-familiar tropes as beautiful women magically turned into animals and kings marrying brave peasant girls; most striking, however, is D'Aulnoy's pioneering feminism. A world authority on the genre, Jack Zipes translates these eight stories and introduces them, while Natalie Frank contributes dramatic paintings.