Chronological List of Myths and Fairy Tales
Early History
| Source/Author | Lived | Title | Date | Origin | Details | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ancient Tablets | Epic of Gilgamesh | 21st to 13th C BC | Mesopotamia, Sumeria | 📘 | 🛒 | ||
| Outside of the Bible, the most ancient extant epic tale. Tells of the adventures of Gilgamesh, a Sumerian king, and especially includes details of a version of the Noah flood account. The flood hero in Gilgamesh is called Utnapishtim. An image of one of the Epic of Gilgamesh tablets is available to view at the British Museum Digital Collections Website. A translation of this tablet is available at the Internet Archive | |||||||
| Ancient Tablets | Enūma Eliš | 20th C BC | Ashur, Nineveh, Kish, Uruk | 📘 | 🛒 | ||
| A Babylonian creation epic, Enuma Elish translates to "When Above" or "When on High". Begins with a description of the beginning of time and the creation of the world, especially the rise of the god Marduk. An image of an Enuma Elish tablet is available to view at the British Museum Digital Collections Website. | |||||||
| Ancient Tablets | Atra-hasis Epic | 18th C BC | Mesopotamia, Akkadian | ||||
| A Babylonian version of the Noah flood story, with Atrahasis as the flood hero. A similar Sumerian flood account has a flood hero called Ziasudra. | |||||||
| Ancient Tablets | Lugal-e, also known as Ninurta Epic | 1500-1100 BC | Mesopotamian | ||||
| Ninurta is also called Ningirsu, was a god/lord of grain or barley, an ancient Mesopotamian deity associated with farming, healing, hunting, law, scribes, and war who was first worshipped in early Sumer. He is known in some places as the first born of Enlil, god of fertility, and Ninhursaga, mistress/goddess of the foothills. | Papyrus D'Orbiney | The Tale of the Two Brothers | 1200 BC | Egyptian | 📘 | ||
| Images of the Papyrus D'Orbiney are available to view at the British Museum Digital Collections Website. Includes the heart in bag motif. | |||||||
| Berossus through Secondary Sources | early 3rd C BC | Babyloniaca | 3rd C BC | Mesopotamian | 📘 | ||
| Originally, written in three books. Book 1: Babylonian geography and cosmology, c.f. Enuma Elish. Book 2 and 3: Geneaology of the kings of Babylon and another account of the Mesopotamian flood myth | |||||||
Classical
| Source/Author | Lived | Title | Date | Origin | Details | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hesiod | 750 - 650 BC | Theogony | 800 BC | Greek | |||
| A cosmological work describing the origins and genealogy of the gods. | |||||||
| Pericles | 495 - 429 BC | Becomes leader of Athens, flowering of Greek culture | 449 BC | ||||
| Peloponnesian War begins | 431 BC | ||||||
| Herodotus | c. 484 - c. 425 BC | Histories: Greco-Persian Wars | 430 BC | Greek | |||
| Like Thucydides, one of the early historians considered a "Father of History". | |||||||
| Ved Vyasa | Mahabharata | 400 BC - 400 AD | Indian | ||||
| The Mahābhārata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India revered as Smriti texts in Hinduism, the other being the Rāmāyaṇa. (wikipedia) | |||||||
| Plato | 428 - 347 BC | Republic | 375 BC | Greek | |||
| Stanford Encyclopedia has an article about the myths found in Plato's writings. The Myth of Er is found in Plato's Republic, book 10. | |||||||
| Alexander the Great | 356 BC - 323 BC | ||||||
| Apollonius of Rhodes | 3rd C BC | Voyage of the Argonauts, The Golden Fleece | 350 BC | Greek | 📘 | ||
| The adventures of Jason and the Argonauts, especially Jason winning the Golden Fleece. Notable among Jason's fifty companions on his ship were Herakles/Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Orpheus, Admetus, and Theseus. | |||||||
| Philip II | 382-336 BC | Philip II, king of Macedonians, defeats Athens, subjegates Greece. Rise of Alexander the Great. | 338 BC | ||||
| Mani, etc | Book of the Giants | 200 BC | Mesopotamian | 📘 | |||
| Qumran community, maybe older. Gilgamesh, Umbaba, the Nephilim. | |||||||
| Apollodorus | 180 BC - ? | Chronicle, Bibliotheca | 120 BC | Greek | |||
| Summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends, all as recorded in literature. Valuable source for Greek beliefs about the world through mythological ages to the beginning of real history. (Loeb cover). | |||||||
| Virgil | 79 - 19 BC | Aeneid | 30 BC | Roman | 📘 | ||
| He alludes to Greek mythology in his writings | |||||||
| Dionysius of Halicarnassus | 60 BC - 7 AD | Sabine Women, Death of Romulus | 30 BC | Greek | |||
| Greek historian who included myths in his writings. | |||||||
Early Christian
| Source/Author | Lived | Title | Date | Origin | Details | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ovid | 43 BC - 18 AD | Metamorphoses | 8 AD | Roman | |||
| The poem chronicles the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar in a mythico-historical framework comprising over 250 myths, 15 books (wikipedia) | |||||||
| Written by the brother of Pius, Bishop of Rome | 140 - 154 | Shepherd of Hermes | 80 | Roman | |||
| Found in the Codex Sinaiticus. | |||||||
| Apuleius | 124 - 170 | The Golden Ass | 200 AD | Numidian | |||
| The work, called Metamorphoses by its author, narrates the adventures of a young man changed by magic into an ass. (Britannica). | |||||||
| Philostratus | c. 170 - c. 240 | Life of Appolonius of Tyana | 190s - 240s | Roman | |||
| Historian, Stories of Heroes. | |||||||
Early Middle Ages - 5th to 10th Centuries
| Source/Author | Lived | Title | Date | Origin | Details | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Augustine | 354 - 430 | ||||||
| Johannes Stobeaus | Early 5th C | Anthology | 400 | Greek | |||
| Anthology of Greek Poetical, rhetorical, historical, philosophical literature, including discourses and dialogues attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. | |||||||
| Gregory of Tours | 539 - 594 | History of the Franks | 594 | Germany | 📘 | ||
| Myth of the Trojan Origins of the Franks | |||||||
| Gildas | 450 - 570 | On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain | 560? | England | |||
| One of the most important sources for the history of Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries, as it is the only significant historical source for the period written by a near contemporary of the people and events described. (wiki) | |||||||
| Bede | 672 - 735 | Ecclesiastical History of the English People | 731 | England | |||
| Charlemagne | 747 - 814 | ||||||
| Book of Kells | 800 | ||||||
| Hermes Trismegistus | Emerald Tablet, Asclepius | 300BC to 1100AD? | Hellenistic | ||||
| A set of cryptic writing, "as above, so below", correspondance between universe and the soul, influenced medieval and Renaissance alchemy, theurgy, magic, divine spirit in all things | |||||||
| Anonymous | Arabian Nights: One Thousand One Nights | 850? | Middle East | ||||
| Nennius | 9th C | Historia Brittonum | 880? | England | |||
| The Historia Brittonum was highly influential, becoming a major contributor to the Arthurian legend, in particular for its inclusion of events relevant to debate about the historicity of King Arthur (wiki). Largely based on Gildas. | |||||||
| Beowulf Poet | Beowulf | 975? | England | ||||
| Old English epic poem; one of the most important and most translated works of Old English literature (wiki). Story set in Scandinavia in 5th and 6th C. Survives in Nowell Codex.(?) | |||||||
| Poetic Edda | 985? | Norse | |||||
| Old Norse narrative poems. Several versions exist, especially Codex Regius (31 poems). | |||||||
High Middle Ages - 11th to 14th Centuries
| Source/Author | Lived | Title | Date | Origin | Details | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1000 | |||||||
| Anonymous | Suda (or Suida) | 1000s BC | Byzantine | ||||
| A large 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world. | |||||||
| Anonymous | The Song of Roland | 1000 | French | 📘 | |||
| Based on the deeds of the Frankish military leader Roland at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in AD 778 | |||||||
| Norman Conquest | 1066 | ||||||
| Honorius Augustodunensis | 1080 - 1151 | Elucidarium | 1098 | England | |||
| An encyclopedic work or summa about medieval Christian theology and folk belief (wiki). Disciple of Anselm. | |||||||
| Peter Abelard | 1079 - 1142 | ||||||
| 1100 | |||||||
| University of Paris Founded | 1100 | ||||||
| Anonymous | Mabinogion | 1100 - 1400 | England | 📘 | |||
| From earlier tradition, so a much older story. The earliest prose literature of Britain, in Middle Welsh. Fragmentary pre-Christian Celtic mythology, or folklore; King Arthur (wiki). First modern translations by William Owen Pughe. | |||||||
| William of Malmesbury | 1080 - 1143 | Chronicles of King of England | 1125 | England | 📘 | ||
| Historian, Arthurian legends? | |||||||
| Geoffrey of Monmouth | 1095 - 1155 | Historia Regum Britainniae | 1136 | England | 📘 | ||
| History of the Kings of Britain, Tales of King Arthur. | |||||||
| University of Oxford Founded | c. 1160 | ||||||
| Thomas of Britain | 1165 - 1210 | Tristan | 1160 | England | 📘 | ||
| Source for Gottfried von Strassburg. The source for this is a lost Old French story, derived itself from Celtic legend. | |||||||
| Marie de France | 1160 - 1215 | Lais of Marie de France | 1155-1170 | France | 📘 | ||
| Lanval, Lay le Freine, Chevrefoil, Tristan and Iseult, etc. Marie's lais are thought to form the basis for what would eventually become the genre known as the Breton lais (wikipedia) | |||||||
| Chrétien de Troyes | 1165 - 1180 | Arthurian Romances | 1170-1190 | France | 📘 | ||
| Érec et Énide [ca. 1165], Cligés [ca. 1176], Le Chevalier de la Charrette (Lancelot), Le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain) [ca. 1177?], and Le Conte du Graal (Perceval) [ca. 1190]. Princeton essay about Background Information on Chrétien de Troyes's Le Chevalier de la Charrette. | |||||||
| 1200 | |||||||
| Brother Robert / Anonymous | 1217 - 1263 | Strengleikar | 1250 | Norse | 📘 | ||
| A collection of 21 Old Norse prose tales, based on the French lais of Marie de France. Commissioned by King Haakon IV of Norway. | |||||||
| Anonymous | Volsunga Saga | 1200 | Norse | 📘 | |||
| A few also in the "Poetic Edda". A legendary saga of the origin and decline of the Völsung clan (including the story of Sigurd and Brunhild and the destruction of the Burgundians). A "heroic saga". Based on earlier tales | |||||||
| Anonymous | Nibelungenlied | 1200-1300 | German | ||||
| The Song of the Nibelungs. Based on German heroic legends, with origins in the events and people of the 5th and 6th centuries. Epic poem in Middle High German. | |||||||
| Gottfried von Strassburg | c. 1165 - c. 1210 | Tristan (and Iseult) | 1200 | Germany | |||
| "Regarded as one of the great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages" (wikipedia). Gottfried died before finishing the work. | |||||||
| Anonymous | Moriz von Craun | 1200 | Germany | 📘 | |||
| A Middle High German verse narrative, tale of chivalry. At the beginning of the story, the author recounts the origins of chivalry, how it began with the Greeks, then passed to the Romans... (wikipedia) | |||||||
| Jean de Mailly | 13th C | Diocese of Metz, Chronica universalis Mettensis | 1200s | Germany | |||
| Source of the fables of Pope Joan, also the compiler of the Abbreviatio in gestis sanctorum, a collection of legends about the saints which is an important forerunner of the Golden Legend. | |||||||
| Saxo Grammaticus | 1150 - 1220 | Gesta Danorum | 1208 | Denmark | |||
| First full history of Denmark, inspired Shakespeare. | |||||||
| Snorri Sturluson | 1179 - 1241 | Prose Edda | 1210 | Norse | |||
| 4 sections: Prologue account of Norse gods, Gylfaginning, Skaldskaparmal, Hattatal; Norse Mythology. | |||||||
| Magna Carta | 1215 | ||||||
| Sir Thomas de Ercildoun | 1220 - 1298 | Sir Tristrem | 1200s? | England | 📘 | ||
| Thomas the Rhymer, Thomas Learmont or True Thomas; "Queen of Elfland" "he is recorded in popular tale and ballad with having been kidnapped by an elfin queen before being returned, replete with the art of prophesy and the inability to tell a lie." scottishpoetrylibrary.org | |||||||
| Compiled | Golden Legend | 1259-1266 | Italy | ||||
| One of first books William Caxton printed in English, The book is considered the closest thing to an encyclopaedia of medieval saint lore that survives today. | |||||||
| Il Novellino (The Hundred Old Tales) | 1290 | 📘 | |||||
| Anonymous | Gesta Romanarum | 1290 | Roman | 📘 | |||
Late Middle Ages - 14th Century
| Source/Author | Lived | Title | Date | Origin | Details | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1300 | |||||||
| Anonymous | Cursor Mundi | 1300 | England | ||||
| "Over-runner of the World", Written in Middle English, poetic retelling of the history of Christianity from creation to doomsday. | |||||||
| Dante | 1265 - 1321 | Divine Comedy | 1308-1321 | Italian | |||
| Black Death | 1346 - 1353 | ||||||
| Giovanni Boccaccio | 1313 - 1375 | Decameron (Griselda) | 1349-1353 | Italian | |||
| Griselda. Perrault took his version of Griselda from the Decameron. | |||||||
| Francesco Petrarch | 1304 - 1374 | Historia Griseldis - Translation of Griselda into Latin | 1355 | Italian | 📘 | ||
| A version of Griselda in Latin, published as Historia Griseldis in 1473 - Meliador is an Arthurian Romance. Resource Resource Resource | |||||||
| Jean Froissart | 1337 - 1405 | Chronicles, Meliador | 1360, 1383 | France | |||
| A French-speaking medieval author and court historian from the Low Countries. "The Chronicles have been recognized as the chief expression of the chivalric culture of 14th-century England and France. " (wikipedia) | |||||||
| Anonymous | Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight | 1375 | England | ||||
| English Tale | |||||||
| John Gower | 1330 - 1408 | Confessio Amantis | 1390 | England | |||
| From Arthurian Poem, Tolkien mentions this as first use of "fairy" "as he were a faierie" | |||||||
| Geoffrey Chaucer | c. 1343 - 1400 | Canturbury Tales | 1392 | England | |||
| Clerk of Oxford tells a version of "Griselda" (see Perrault) | |||||||
| Thomas Chestre | late 14th C | Romance of Sir Launfel | 1399? | England | 📘 | ||
| Resource | |||||||
Renaissance
| Source/Author | Lived | Title | Date | Origin | Details | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1400 | |||||||
| Guillebert de Lannoy | 1386 - 1462 | L'Instruction de josne prince ("Advice for a Young Prince") | 1440 | Flemish | |||
| A knight of the Golden Fleece, in the service of Philip the Good, Henry V; also wrote of his travels. | |||||||
| Gutenberg Bible | 1455 | ||||||
| Caxton, publisher | ? - 1492 | Historye of Reynart the Foxe, Aesop's Fables | 1481, 1484 | England | 📘 | ||
| Fall of Constantinople | 1453 | ||||||
| Sir Thomas Malory | c. 1416 - 1471 | Morte d'Arthur | 1485 | England | 📘 | ||
| The identity of Sir Thomas Malory is debated. | |||||||
| Hartmann Schedel | 1440 - 1514 | Nuremberg Chronicle | 1493 | Germany | |||
| An illustrated encyclopedia consisting of world historical accounts. | |||||||
| Leonardo da Vinci | 1452 - 1519 | ||||||
| 1500 | |||||||
| Georges Chastellain | 1415 - 1475 | Chronique, Récollections des merveilles advenues en mon temps | 1500 | France | |||
| Court poet, the great master of the school of grands rhétoriqueurs (wiki). Marvelous adventures in my time. | |||||||
| Wu Cheng'en | 1500 - 1582 | The Monkey King | 1500s | China | |||
| Sun Wukong, in Journey to the West. | |||||||
| Martin Luther | 1483 - 1546 | Luther's 95 Theses | 1517 | Germany | |||
| Anonymous | Everyman | 1530 | England | ||||
| Paracelsus | 1493 - 1541 | Book on Nymphs, Prognosticatio Eximii Doctoris Paracelsi | 1566, 1530 | Switzerland | 📘 | ||
| Theophrastus von Hohenheim. Undine based on a passage from this. Prognosticatio: Paracelsus had a substantial influence as a prophet or diviner, his "Prognostications" being studied by Rosicrucians in the 17th century. Paracelsianism is the early modern medical movement inspired by the study of his works. (wiki) | |||||||
| François Rabelais | ? - 1553 | Gargantua and Pantagruel | 1532 | France | |||
| Dirty, crass story; Satire (c.f. Bakhtin, 1940) | |||||||
| Giovan Francesco Straparola | 1485 - 1558 | Le piacevoli notti (The Pleasant Nights) | 1550 | Italy | |||
| Straparola's Pleasant Nights is the first known work where fairy tales as they are known today appeared in print (wiki) Tuscan or standard Italian dialect. Moral but bawdy (Zipes) | |||||||
| Gabriele Faerno | 1510 - 1561 | Collections of fables | 1552 | Italy | 📘 | ||
| Peace of Augsburg | 1555 | ||||||
| John Dee | 1527 - 1608 | Monas Hieroglyphica, 1564, England, An exposition of the meaning of an esoteric symbol that he invented. | |||||
| Anonymous | The Complaynt of Scotland: The Black Bull of Norroway | 1548 | Scotland | ||||
| Edmund Spenser | c. 1552 - 1599 | The Faerie Queen | 1590 | England | |||
| Galileo Galilei | 1564 - 1642 | ||||||
| Francis Bacon | 1561 - 1626 | ||||||
| 1600 | |||||||
| Shakespeare | 1564 - 1616 | Midsummer Night's Dream | 1600 | England | |||
| Heinrich Khunrath | 1560 - 1605 | Ampitheatrum Sapientiae, 1609, Germany. Amphitheater of Eternal Wisdom - a link between the philosophy of John Dee and Rosicrucianism. An alchemical classic | 📘 | ||||
| Fame of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross | 1610 | A Rosicrucian manifesto | |||||
| Confession of the Brotherhood of the RC | 1615 | A Rosicrucian manifesto | |||||
| Mayflower lands, New Plymouth Colony | 1620 | ||||||
| Renee Descartes | 1596 - 1650 | ||||||
| Michael Drayton | 1563 - 1631 | Nymphida | 1627 | England | 📘 | ||
| an old mock-epic song. | |||||||
| Phineas Fletcher | 1582 - 1650 | The Purple Island | 1633 | England | 📘 | ||
| Giambattista Basile | ? - 1637 | Il Pentamerone | 1634 | Italy | |||
| Lo cunto de li cunti (The Story of Stories), Neapolitan dialact. Moral but bawdy (Zipes) | |||||||
| Henry Adamson | 1581 - 1637 | The Muses Threnodie, 1638, Scotland. Includes mentions of Masonry and Rosicrucianism | 📘 | ||||
| Peace of Westphalia | 1648 | ||||||
| Royal Society of London founded | 1660 | ||||||
| Great Fire of London | 1666 | ||||||
| French Academy of Science Founded | 1666 | ||||||
| Madeleine de Scudery | 1607 - 1701 | Artemenes, or the Grand Cyrus | 1649-1653 | France | 📘 | ||
| She was possibly one of the first bluestockings. Another Copy | |||||||
| John Milton | 1608 - 1674 | Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained | 1667 | England | |||
| Baruch / Benedictus de Spinoza | 1632 - 1677 | Ethics | 1661 - 1675 | Dutch | |||
| Hans Grimmelhausen | Adventures of a Simpleton, 1669, Germany. One of the earliest German novels??? | ||||||
| Abbé Nicolas-Pierre-Henri de Montfaucon de Villars | 1638 - 1673 | Le Comte de Gabalis | 1670 | France | |||
| Original title was "The Count of Cabala, Or Dialogs on the Secret Sciences". Source for many of the fantastical creatures in later French literature. | |||||||
| Pompeo Sarnelli | 1649 - 1724 | Il Pentamerone, The Tale of Tales | 1674 | Italy | |||
| Translated Bulifon ed. Of The Tale of Tales into Italain | |||||||
| John Bunyan | 1628 - 1688 | Pilgrim's Progress | 1678 | England | |||
| Isaac Newton | 1642-1727 | Principia Mathematica | 1687 | England | |||
| Glorious Revolution in England - Bill of Rights for Parliament | 1688 | ||||||
| John Locke | 1632 - 1704 | Essay Concerning Human Understanding | 1690 | England | |||
| Mlle Marie-Jeanne Lheritier | 1664 - 1734 | Oeuvres melees (Miscellanies) | 1695 | France | 📘 | ||
| Diamonds and Toads, or the Kind and Unkind Sisters | |||||||
| Charles Perrault | 1628 - 1723 | Contes de ma mere l'oie (Tales of Mother Goose), Histoires ou contes... (Stories or tales of bygone times) | 1695 | France | 📘 | ||
| Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding-Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Books, The Fairies; Griselidis (1691), Three Silly Wishes (Les Souhaits ridicules) (1693), Donkey-Skin (1694). Grimm brothers reprinted some of Perrault's stories (wiki). Perrault was in court of the Sun King, Louis XIV. Histoires: Cinderella, Ricky the Tuft, Hop o' my Thumb, Moralites. | |||||||
| Catherine Bernard | Ines de Cordoue, with the tale Riquet a la houppe | 1696 | France | 📘 | |||
| Johann Amos Comenius | 1592 - 1670 | Orbis Pictus (The World Illustrated) | 1697 | Czech | 📘 | ||
| Countess d'Aulnoy | 1652 - 1705 | Les Contes des Fées (Fairy Tales) | 1697 | France | |||
| Madame Bunch, Graciosa and Percinet (Red Fairy Book), The White Cat (Blue Fairy Book) | |||||||
Enlightenment
| Source/Author | Lived | Title | Date | Origin | Details | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1700 | |||||||
| Mme d'Auneuil | ? - 1700 | La Tiranie des fées détruite (The Tyranny of the Fairies Destroyed) | 1700 | France | 📘 | ||
| Louise de Bossigny | |||||||
| Antoine Galland | Les Mille et une nuits (The Thousand and One Nights) | 1704-1717 | France | ||||
| Translation of Arabian Nights | |||||||
| Death of Louis XIV, the Sun King | 1715 | Both the reign and the death of Louis XIV's had an enormous influence on literature, science and the arts. | |||||
| Alexander Pope | 1688 - 1744 | Rape of the Lock | 1717 | England | |||
| Daniel Defoe | 1616 - 1731 | Robinson Crusoe | 1719 | England | |||
| Jonathan Swift | 1667 - 1745 | Gulliver's Travels | 1726 | Ireland | |||
| Anonymous | Perrault's Fairy Tales (English Translation) | 1729 | England | ||||
| Fenelon | 1690 - ? | Collection printed after death | 1730 | France? | 📘 | ||
| Les Aventures de Télémaque, a didactic novel for grandson of Louis XIV | |||||||
| Mme Leprince de Beaumont | 1711 - 1780 | Le Magasin des Enfants | 1743 | France | 📘 | ||
| Includes Beauty and the Beast | |||||||
| Edmund Burke | 1729 - 1797 | A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful | 1757 | England | 📘 | ||
| Emanuel Swedenborg | 1688 - 1772 | Concerning New Jerusalem | 1758 | Sweden, England | |||
| Anonymous | Arabian Nights: First Printed Edition | 1775 | Middle East | ||||
| Or 1706 | |||||||
| John Newbery (Isaiah Thomas, publisher) | 1713 - 1767 | Mother Goose Melodies | 1760 | England | 📘 | ||
| Immanuel Kant | 1724 - 1804 | Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime | 1764 | Germany | |||
| Thomas Percy | 1729 - 1811 | Reliques of Ancient English Poetry | 1765 | England | |||
| Percy's greatest contribution is considered to be his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), the first of the great ballad collections, which was the one work most responsible for the ballad revival in English poetry that was a significant part of the Romantic movement. (wikipedia) | |||||||
| Thomas Bewick | 1753 - 1828 | The New Lottery Book of Birds and Beasts | 1771 | England | |||
| Rudolf Erich Raspe | 1736 - 1794 | Baron Munchausen's Narrative of His Marvellous Trvls & Campaigns in Russia. | 1785 | Germany | |||
| Anonymous | Beowulf - first transcription to English | 1786 | England | ||||
| First transcribed; First modern English verses in 1805, 9 complete translations made in the 1800s | |||||||
| Charles-Joseph Mayer, Garnier | 1751 - 1802 | The Fairy Cabinet / Cabinet de fees | 1785-1789 | France | 📘 | ||
| Collection of 100 years of fairy tales in France. | |||||||
| Christoph Martin Wieland | 1733 - 1813 | Dschinnistan - Collection of Tales | 1786 - 1789 | Germany | |||
| Includes adaptations of Cabinet des fees (Charles Mayer), as well as "The Philosopher's Stone," "Timander und Melissa", "The Druid and the Salamander and the Painted Pillar" - theme is rationalism over mysticism. | |||||||
Romanticism - Late 18th to mid 19th century
| Source/Author | Lived | Title | Date | Origin | Details | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German Romantic Movement, Jena School | c. 1798 to c. 1804 | ||||||
| Friedrich Schiller | 1759 - 1805 | Collected Poetry | 1805 | ||||
| Johann Fichte | 1762 - 1814 | ||||||
| Caroline Schlegel/Schelling | 1763 - 1809 | ||||||
| Dorothea Veit/Schlegel | 1764 - 1839 | ||||||
| Friedrich Schleiermacher | 1768 - 1834 | ||||||
| Friedrich Holderlin | 1770 - 1843 | Hyperion | 1797, 1799 | ||||
| Friedrich Schlegel | 1772 - 1829 | Dialogue on Poetry | |||||
| Friedrich Schelling | |||||||
| August Wilhelm Schlegel | 1776 - 1845 | ||||||
| Wilhelm Wackenroder | 1773 - 1798 | Outpourings of an Art-Loving Friar | 1797 | ||||
| Ludwig Tieck | 1773 - 1798 | Volksmärchen von Peter Lebrecht, Romantische Dichtungen | 1797 | ||||
| 1785 | |||||||
| William Blake | 1757 - 1827 | Songs of Innocence | 1789 | England | |||
| Johann Musaus | Volksmahrchen der Deutschen | 1782 - 1786 | Germany | ||||
| Benedikte Naubert | 1756 - 1819 | Neue Volksmarchen der Deutschen | 1789 - 1793 | Germany | 📘 | ||
| Published 1840? | |||||||
| French Revolution | 1789-1799 | ||||||
| Storming of the Bastille | 1793 | ||||||
| Goethe | 1749 - 1832 | Marchen - The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily | 1795 | Germany | |||
| Published in Schiller's De Horen; In German called Das Märchen; regarded as the founding example of the genre of Kunstmärchen, or artistic fairy tale. /// Associated with Weimar Classicism | |||||||
| Novalis | 1772 - 1801 | Spiritual Songs, Heinrich von Ofterndingen | 1792, 1798 | Germany | 📘 | ||
| Klingsohr's Marchen, Disciples at Sais, Sehnsucht nach dem Tode. German Version Exotica | |||||||
| 1800 | |||||||
| Sir Walter Scott | 1771 - 1832 | Lay of the Last Minstrel | 1805 | Scotland | 📘 | ||
| Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel | 1770 - 1831 | The Phenomenology of Spirit | 1807 | Germany | |||
| Robert Southey | 1774 - 1843 | Curse of Kehama | 1810 | England, India | 📘 | ||
| Based on Hindu myth and Zoroastrian mythology, a twelve part epic poem. | |||||||
| Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué | 1777 - 1843 | Undine, Der Zauberring (The Magic Ring) | 1811, 1813 | Germany | 📘 | ||
| Alt spelling Ondine. Species of undine include nereides, limnads, naiades, mermaids and potamides. (wikipedia) | |||||||
| Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm | 1785 - 1863 | Märchen | 1812 | Germany | 📘 | ||
| By the seventh edition in 1857, the corpus of tales had expanded to 200 tales and 10 "Children's Legends". (wikipedia) | |||||||
| ETA Hoffman | 1776 - 1822 | Golden Pot | 1814 | Germany | 📘 | ||
| Masterpiece, highly influential work of romantic fairy-tale literature | |||||||
| Percy Bysshe Shelley | 1792 - 1822 | Alastor, Prometheus Unbound | 1815, 1820 | England | 📘 | ||
| John Polidori | 1795 - 1821 | The Vampyre | 1819 | England | 📘 | ||
| John Keats | 1795 - 1821 | La Belle Dame Sans Merci | 1819 | England | |||
| Ballad, the title was derived from the title of a 15th-century poem by Alain Chartier called La Belle Dame sans Mercy. Considered an English classic, the poem is an example of Keats' poetic preoccupation with love and death. The poem is about a fairy who condemns a knight to an unpleasant fate after she seduces him with her eyes and singing. (wikipedia) | |||||||
| Hegel's Berlin Lectures | 1818 - 1831 | ||||||
| Edgar Taylor | 1793 - 1839 | Grimm's Popular Stories | 1823 | England | |||
| First translation to English, illustrated by Cruikshank | |||||||
| Clement C. Moore | 1779 - 1863 | A Visit From St. Nicholas | 1823 | United States | |||
| Thomas Beddoes | 1803 - 1849 | Poems and Stories, Pygmalion | 1825 | England | 📘 | ||
| Golden Age of Fairy Tales for Children Begins | Mid 19th C | ||||||
| Thomas Carlyle | 1795 - 1881 | Translation of Goethe's Fairy Tale | 1832 | England | 📘 | ||
| Best English Translation | |||||||
| Elias Lönnrot | 1802 - 1884 | Kalevala | 1835 | Finland | 📘 | ||
| 19th-century compilation of epic poetry, compiled from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling a story about the Creation of the Earth amd the peoples (wiki). Influenced Tolkien | |||||||
| Hans Christian Anderson | 1805 - 1875 | Fairy Tales | 1837 | Denmark | |||
| Little Mermaid | |||||||
| Sara Coleridge | 1802 - 1852 | Phantasmion | 1837 | England | 📘 | ||
| Lady Charlotte Guest | 1812 - 1895 | Mabinogion - first full publishing | 1838-1845 | England | |||
| Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe | 1812 - 1885 | Norwegian Folktales (Norske folkeeventyr) | 1841 | Norse | 📘 | ||
| Soren Kierkegaard | 1813-1855 | Either/Or | 1843 | Denmark | |||
| Charles Dickens | 1812 - 1870 | Christmas Carol | 1843 | England | |||
| Heinrich Heine | 1797 - 1856 | Romanticism (An essay), Germany. A Winter's Tale | 1820, 1844 | Germany | 📘 | ||
| Deutschland: Ein Wintermärchen | |||||||
| Heinrich Hoffmann | 1809 - 1894 | Struwwelpeter (Shock-Headed Peter) | 1845 | Germany | |||
| Book of morals for misbehaving children | |||||||
| Edward Lear | 1812 - 1888 | Book of Nonsense | 1846 | England | |||
| Mary Howitt, transl. to English | 1799 - 1888 | Wonderful Stories: Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Anderson | 1846 | England | |||
| Karl Marx | 1818 - 1883 | Communist Manifesto | 1848 | ||||
Victorian / Industrial Revolution - Mid 19th century to WWI
| Source/Author | Lived | Title | Date | Origin | Details | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1850 | |||||||
| Thomas Tracy | Undine | 1850 | England | ||||
| Translation to English | |||||||
| John Ruskin | 1819 - 1900 | King of the Golden River | 1851 | England | |||
| Nathaniel Hawthorne | 1804 -1864 | Wonderbook for Boys and Girls | 1852 | United States | |||
| Tanglewood Tales | |||||||
| Matthew Arnold | 1822 - 1888 | Sohrab and Rustum | 1853 | England | |||
| Richard Wagner | 1813 - 1883 | Rings of the Nibelung (opera) | 1857 | Germany | |||
| William Morris | 1834 - 1896 | Sir Galahad, A Christmas Mystery | 1858 | England | 📘 | ||
| Sir George Dasent | 1817 - 1896 | Popular Tales From the North, East of the Sun, West of the Moon | 1859 | England | |||
| Tales from Scandinavia | |||||||
| Alfred Tennyson | 1809 - 1892 | Idylls of the King, Lady of Shalott | 1859, 1932, 1849 | England | 📘 | ||
| Sir Galahad (poem), In Memoriam A.H.H. | |||||||
| Charles Kingsley | 1819 - 1875 | The Water Babies | 1863 | England | 📘 | ||
| Jules Verne | 1828 - 1905 | Journey to the Center of the Earth | 1864 | France | |||
| Lewis Carroll | 1832 - 1898 | Alice in Wonderland | 1865 | England | |||
| Charles Dodgson | |||||||
| Richard Wagner | 1813 - 1883 | Tristan und Isolde (opera) | 1865 | Germany | 📘 | ||
| Leo Tolstoy | 1828 - 1910 | War and Peace | 1869 | Russia | |||
| George MacDonald | 1824 - 1905 | Phantastes | 1858 | England | 📘 | ||
| At the Back of the North Wind (1871) , Princess and the Goblin (1872) | |||||||
| Lady Charlotte Guest | 1812 - 1895 | Mabinogion - one volume edition | 1877 | England | |||
| Kate Greenaway | 1846 - 1901 | Under the Window, The Marigold Garden | 1878 | England | |||
| Lucretia Hale | 1820 - 1900 | The Peterkin Papers | 1880 | United States | |||
| Carlo Collodi | 1826 - 1890 | The Adventures of Pinnochio | 1881 | Italy | |||
| English Translation in 1892, Carlos Lorenzini | |||||||
| Joel Chandler Harris | 1848 - 1908 | Unce Remus Stories | 1881 | United States | |||
| Francis James Child | 1825 - 1896 | Child's Ballads, English and Scottish Popular Ballads | 1882-1898 | England, Scotland, United States | 📘 | ||
| originally published in ten volumes between 1882 and 1898 under the title The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.(wiki) | |||||||
| May Kendall | 1861 - 1943 | That Very Mab | 1885 | England | |||
| William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson, trans | 1834 - 1896 | The Story of the Volsungs | 1876 | England, Norse | 📘 | ||
| Resource | |||||||
| Nietzsche | 1844 - 1900 | Thus Spoke Zarathustra | 1883 | Germany | |||
| Andrew Lang | 1844 - 1912 | Blue Fairy Book, etc. | 1889 | England | |||
| Series of Twelve Fairy Books Last was? Lilac Fairy Book (1910) | |||||||
| Joseph Jacobs | 1854 - 1916 | English Fairy Tales, Vol. 1 and 2 | 1890, 1894 | England, Australia | |||
| William Morris | 1834 - 1896 | The Wood Beyond the World | 1894 | England | 📘 | ||
| Resource | |||||||
| Rudyard Kipling | 1865 - 1936 | Jungle Book | 1894 | India, England | |||
| 1900 | |||||||
| Anonymous | Beowulf - hundreds of translations by this points | 1900 | |||||
| Hundreds of translations made of Beowulf in the 1900s. Most notable are Edwin Morgan, Burton Raffel, Seamus Heaney, Tolkien, Gardiner | |||||||
| L. Frank Baum | 1856 - 1919 | The Wizard of Oz | 1900 | United States | |||
| "first America fantasy" (Child. Lit) | |||||||
| E. Nesbit | 1858 - 1924 | Five Children and It | 1902 | England | |||
| Beatrix Potter | 1866 - 1943 | Peter Rabbit | 1902 | England | |||
| Peter Rabbit first published work | |||||||
| L.M. Montgomery | 1874 - 1942 | Ghost Stories, Romance Stories | 1904 | Canada | |||
| J.M. Barrie | 1860 - 1937 | Peter Pan of Kensington Gardens | 1906 | England | |||
| Illustrated by Arthur Rackham; play was published in 1904 | |||||||
| Rudyard Kipling | 1865 - 1936 | Puck of Pook's Hill | 1906 | England, India | |||
| Just So Stories (1902) - Stories about the origin of animal characteristics | |||||||
| G.K. Chesterton | 1874 - 1936 | The Ethics of Elfland, Orthodoxy | 1908 | England | |||
| mooreeffoc | |||||||
| Kenneth Grahame | 1859 - 1932 | Wind in the Willows | 1908 | England | |||
| Illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard | |||||||
| Frances Hodgson Burnett | 1849 - 1924 | Secret Garden | 1910 | England | |||
Early to Mid 20th Century
| Source/Author | Lived | Title | Date | Origin | Details | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Margery Williams | 1881 - 1944 | Velveteen Rabbit | 1922 | England | |||
| A.A. Milne | 1882 - 1956 | Winnie The Pooh | 1926 | England | |||
| Charles Williams | 1886 - 1945 | War in Heaven | 1930 | England | |||
| also The Place of the Lion; The Greater Trumps; Descent into Hell | |||||||
| Pamela Travers | 1899 - 1996 | Mary Poppins | 1934 | England | |||
| J.R.R. Tolkien | 1892 - 1973 | The Hobbit | 1937 | England | |||
| Antoine de Saint-Exupery | 1900 - 1944 | Little Prince | 1943 | France | |||
| Marcia Brown | 1918 - 2015 | Stone Soup | 1947 | United States | |||
| Astrid Lindgren | 1907 - 2002 | Pippi Longstocking | 1950 | Sweden | |||
| E.B. White | 1899 - 1985 | Charlotte's Web | 1952 | United States | |||
| Mary Norton | 1903 - 1992 | The Borrowers | 1952 | England | |||
| Also wrote the Magic Bed Knob (1944) and Bonfires and Broomsticks (1971), which was adapted into Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks | |||||||
| Hannah Hurnard | 1905 - 1990 | Hinds Feet on High Places | 1955 | England, United States | |||
Recent and Today
| Source/Author | Lived | Title | Date | Origin | Details | Read | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C.S. Lewis | 1898 - 1963 | Narnia Series | 1950-1956 | England | 📘 | ||
| On Stories (1947), Of This and Other World (1982) | |||||||
| J.R.R. Tolkien | 1892 - 1973 | Lord of the Rings | 1954 | England | |||
| On Fairy Stories (1947) | |||||||
| Madeline L'Engle | 1918 - 2007 | Wrinkle in Time Series | 1962 -1989 | United States | |||
| Lloyd Alexander | 1924 - 2007 | The Chronicles of Prydain | 1964-1968 | United States | |||
| The Book of Three (1964), The Black Cauldron (1965), The Castle of Llyr (1966), Taran Wanderer (1967), and The High King (1968). The five novels take place in Prydain, a fictional country ruled by a High King who oversees several minor kingdoms. | |||||||
| Susan Cooper | b. 1935 | The Dark Rising | 1965-1977 | England | |||
| The books depict a struggle between forces of good and evil called "The Light" and "The Dark", and draw upon Arthurian legends, Celtic mythology, Norse mythology and English folklore. (wiki) | |||||||
| Brian Jacques | 1939 - 2011 | Redwall | 1986-2011 | England | |||
| Redwall Series (1986 - 2011), Tribes of Redwall Series (2001 - 2003), Castaways of the Flying Dutchman Series (2001 - 2006). | |||||||
| Stephen R. Lawhead | b. 1950 | Dragon King Trilogy, Pendragon Cycle, see details for more | 1982 - present | United States, Wales | |||
| Dragon King Trilogy (1982 - 1984), Empyrion Saga (1985 - 1986), The Pendragon Cycle (1987 - 1999), Song of Albion (1991 - 1993), The Celtic Crusades (1998 - 2001), King Raven Trilogy (2006 - 2009), Hero (2003 - ), Bright Empires (2010 - 2014), Eirlandia (2018 - 2020), Dream Thief (1983), Byzantium (1996), Patrick, Son of Ireland (2003), The Riverbank (Children's) Series (1990). | |||||||
| George Lucas, et. al. | Star Wars Film Series | 1977 - present | |||||
| Jonathan Betuel | The Last Starfighter (film) | 1984 | Nick Castle directing | ||||
| Gregory Widen, et. al. | Highlander Film Series | 1986 - present | |||||
| Philip Pullman | b. 1946 | His Dark Materials Trilogy (1995 - 2000), Clockwork (1996), and more | |||||
| Neil Gaiman | b. 1960 | Good Omens (1990), Stardust (1999), American Gods (2001), Coraline (2002), The Books of Magic (and spin off The Books of Faerie), Norse Mythology (2017) and more | |||||
| J.K. Rowling | b. 1965 | Harry Potter Series | 1998 - | England | |||
| Rick Riordan | b. 1964 | Percy Jackson & the Olympians | 2005 - present | United States | |||
| Also Heroes of Olympus, The Trials of Apollo, The Kane Chronicles, Magnus Chase and the gods of Asgard. | |||||||
| Eoin Colfer | b. 1965 | Artemis Fowl Series | 2001 - 2012 | Ireland | |||
| Also Half-Moon Investigations, (2006), The Fowl Twins (2019 - 2021), Legends Series (2005 - 2008) | |||||||