This volume offers a comprehensive critical and theoretical introduction to the genre of the fairy tale. It: explores the ways in which folklorists have defined the genreassesses the various methodologies used in the analysis and interpretation of fairy taleprovides a detailed account of the historical development of the fairy tale as a literary formengages with the major ideological controversies that have shaped critical and creative approaches to fairy tales in the twentieth and twenty-first centuriesdemonstrates that the fairy tale is a highly metamorphic genre that has flourished in diverse media, including oral tradition, literature, film, and the visual arts.