Sleeping Beauty: Original Authors

The fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty is one of the most well known fairy tales, but it actually has a lot of versions and different authors as part of it's history!

I spent a lot of time researching the history of Sleeping Beauty when writing my fantasy retelling: Sleeping Beauty. Normally I only spend one blog post that looks at both the original fairy tale and the authors, but Sleeping Beauty is getting this bonus post where I look at the many authors and origins of the stories because they are so fascinating. But worry not–I’m still going to rip the original fairy tale to shreds in a sarcastic summary in this other blog post!

Now, onto the research!

My rendition of Sleeping Beauty is a little different from all my other stories, because it is a combination of two fairy tales: Sleeping Beauty, and Little Briar Rose.

If I’m being picky, my Sleeping Beauty was based on more than two fairy tales, because the Brothers Grimm actually collected quite a few stories that all share elements of sleeping beauty, but the classic one that inspired Disney’s sleeping beauty, and the story I drew the most from, is Little Briar Rose. The Brothers Grimm published their first collection of fairy tales in 1812, and became the creators of folklore studies. Little Briar Rose was one of the many orally told stories they collected, and they were able to trace its origins to Charles Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty–which we will jump into below. The Brothers Grimm story shares the same basic plot as Perrault’s story, however, it is essentially chopped in half, and also cleaned up a bit.

Moving on! Sleeping Beauty was published in French by Charles Perrault in 1697. (Perrault’s name might sound familiar, as he also published versions of Puss in Boots and Cinderella.) Though Perrault crafted the most recognizable elements of sleeping beauty as we know it today, he actually based his story on the a fairy tale written by an Italian poet, Giambattista Basile. The story–which was published in 1634, after Basile died–was called Sun, Moon, and Talia.

Sun, Moon, and Tailia, in turn, was based off several folk stories–including a chapter/episode of a lyrical poetry series titled Perceforest that was collected in the early 1300s. The specific sleeping beauty chapter is titled Histoire de Troïlus et de Zellandine, and is considered the first of its kind–AKA the first of the sleeping princess stories as there are quite a few.

Overall, the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty is a lot like Wild Swans in that there are a lot of variations out there that are considered separate stories, but they all fall under one type.

In my sarcastic summary blog post we’ll actually dive into the original story, but it is worth mentioning that Perrault–and as a result the Brothers Grimm–removed some of the ickier elements that are included in Sun, Moon, and Talia, and Perceforest. (The biggest issue being the sleezebag of a prince who finds the sleeping princess.)

If you're interested in reading a sweet romantasy Sleeping Beauty retelling you can try my standalone book in Kindle Unlimited or ebook and paperback!

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Sleeping Beauty Released!

Today is the big day–Sleeping Beauty is available for purchase! A few of you impressive readers have already whipped through it–which impresses me greatly–but as the majority of you Champions haven’t had a chance to crack it yet, I’ll refrain from talking about it, and instead use this post for some housekeeping things.

The matter of greatest importance is Sleeping Beauty reviews! Reviews are really important for authors. They help a lot in terms of opening up doors for advertising as some places have a review requirement, and they also provide useful feedback for me and for possible/interested readers. So as a thank you for reviewing! (I appreciate reviews anywhere you can leave them including Amazon.com, the UK Amazon site, the Australian Amazon site, and Goodreads!)

This time I’m releasing three shorts!

The Beginning: 2 page short story:  Unlocked The Assignment: 11 page short story: Unlocked (Told from Firra’s perspective) The Third Knight: 12 page short story:  Unlocked (Two guesses what this one is about, eh?)

Next up, Beauty and the Beast is temporarily on sale for 99 cents to celebrate Sleeping Beauty‘s release! I’ll probably keep it at that price for roughly a month before hiking it back to its regular price of $2.99.

Finally, I recall that several Champions have birthdays this week, so I hope you have a happy birthday and a splendid birthday weekend!

That’s it for today! I’ll give you all a few days to read before I start my Sleeping Beauty themed posts. Until then, have a lovely time reading, Champions, and thanks in advance for the reviews!

Sleeping Beauty Pre-order

Sleeping Beauty is now available for pre-order! It’s still launching on December 15, so we’ve just a bit over a week to wait. Additionally, Red Rope of Fate is now available in paperback. Woohoo–just in time for Christmas!

In the meantime I’m trying to get my schedule figured out for next year. In 2016 I edited a lot, and I still have to edit Rumpelstiltskin and Wild Swans so I’m not done yet. Still, I’m hopeful next year I’ll be able to produce more books as I won’t have as many editing projects. (This year I edited Red Rope, Beauty and the Beast, and Cinderella–and I’m hoping to still cram Rumpelstiltskin in here.)

The Snow Queen Anthology is just about done–so that’s a relief to check off! (Note: If you want PDF copies of the shorts grab ’em now! When the anthology goes up I’ll have to yank the majority of them off the site due to Amazon rules.) And I already have the Sleeping Beauty shorts finished as well!

While I muse over my goals, I hope you all are doing well! I can’t wait to talk Sleeping Beauty with you! (Isaia is my attempt to overthrow Stil from his position as reigning champion of ‘Most Popular Hero,’ but while he’s just as sweet as Stil he is far quieter, so it’s up in the air at this point!) Thanks for reading, and have a lovely day!