The Book of Romance

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Book of Romance, by VariousThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and withalmost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away orre-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License includedwith this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.orgTitle: The Book of RomanceAuthor: VariousEditor: Andrew LangIllustrator: H. J. FordRelease Date: September 17, 2008 [EBook #26646]Language: English*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF ROMANCE ***Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Chris Curnow, Lindy Walsh,and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net LANCELOT BEARS OFF GUENEVERE (p. 153) THEBOOK OF ROMANCE EDITED BYANDREW LANG WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. J. FORD LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDONNEW YORK AND BOMBAY1902 Copyright 1902BYLongmans, Green, & Co.PREFACEIt is to be supposed that children do not read Prefaces; these are Bluebeard's rooms, which they are not curious tounlock. A few words may therefore be said about the Romances contained in this book. In the editor's opinion, romancesare only fairy tales grown up. The whole mass of the plot and incident of romance was invented by nobody knows who,nobody knows when, nobody knows where. Almost every people has the Cinderella story, with all sorts of variations: aboy hero in place of a girl heroine, a beast in place of a fairy godmother, and so on. The Zuñis, an ...