Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance: The Forgotten Founding Mothers of the Fairy Tale and the Stories That They Spun

Long before The Brothers Grimm, there was a sisterhood of writers who defied the patriarchy and launched a literary craze with their feminist fairy tales--these are their stories. In 17th century Paris, a group of women who called themselves conteuses (female storytellers) came together to weave the very first fairy tales. One of them, Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, coined the term 'fairy tale, ' and some of these stories contain many familiar elements that appear in tales like Rapunzel and Beauty and the Beast. Unfortunately, these women and their tales have mostly been forgotten to history. Women of the Fairytale Resistance uncovers seven of these writer's biographies--which are just as compelling as their fairy tales--and retells 12 of their original stories. The women were mostly young noblewomen who were forced into undesirable marriages and did not have the freedom to give their opinions, travel, or choose who they wanted to love. They used their stories as a way of subtly complainin