Italian Folktales

Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino is a marvellous collection of stories akin to Grimms Fairy Tales, or Charles Parrault?s Tales of Mother Goose. As the preface explains, Italy lacked, until this book, a ?comprehensive book of Italian folk tales, one that would be representative of the entire country and intended for popular consumption as well.? Calvino must have expended an immense effort, working through 19th century source materials, to compile these stories, but none of this scholarly toil is recorded in the book except for brief mention in the preface. The book includes no information about where and when each story appeared, what variations exist, echoes in neighboring countries, none of that. This is not a work of anthropology or literary history but, as the title says, a collection of folk tales. What distinguishes the book isn?t scholarly embellishment but the fact that the stories are collected, assembled, edited, and arranged by a master story teller....