A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1851) is a children's book by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne in which he retells several Greek myths. It was followed by a sequel, Tanglewood Tales.
[edit]
Overview
[[File:Midas gold2.jpg|right|thumb| "Midas' Daughter Turned to Gold" by Walter Crane, illustrating the Midas myth for an 1893 edition ]] The stories in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys are all stories within a story. The frame story is that Eunice Bright, a Williams College student, is telling these tales to a group of children at Tanglewood, an area in Lenox, Massachusetts, where Hawthorne lived for a time. All the tales are modified versions of ancient Greek myths:
- "The Gorgon's Head" - recounts the story of Perseus killing Medusa at the request of the king of the island, Polydectes.
- "The Golden Touch" - recounts the story of King Midas and his "Golden Touch".
- "The Paradise of Children" - recounts the story of Pandora opening the box filled with all of mankind's Troubles.
- "The Three Golden Apples" - recounts the story of Heracles procuring the Three Golden Apples from the Hesperides' orchard, with the help of Atlas.
- "The Miraculous Pitcher" - recounts the story of Baucis and Philemon providing food and shelter to two strangers who were Zeus and "Quicksilver" (Hermes) in disguise. Baucis and Philemon were rewarded by the gods for their kindness; they were promised never to live apart from one another.
- "The Chimæra" - recounts the story of Bellerophon taming Pegasus and killing the Chimæra.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
