[BIBLIOTHÈQUE BLEUE] Contes des Fées, contenant : Cendrillon ; Riquet à la houpe ; La Barbe bleue ; Le Chat botté ; Le Petit Poucet ; La Belle au Bois dormant ; Le petit Chaperon rouge ; Le Prince Charmant ; Les Revenants ; L'Ile de la Félicité ; Les trois Souhaits ; Les Fées ; Le Somnambule

A Bibliothèque bleue edition offering a selection of tales by three major storytellers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: Charles Perrault, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baronne d'Aulnoy, and Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. Several of these tales have been rewritten and abridged, almost certainly to suit the tastes of the chapbook-reading public.

The Baronne d'Aulnoy's L'Île de la Félicité, the first French fairy tale,  included in this 1802 edition, was originally an untitled story embedded within another work by the same author, the novel Histoire d'Hypolite, comte de Duglas. The title it bears here was given to it only fifteen years earlier, when it was published as a standalone piece for the first time, in the collection entitled Voyages Imaginaires.

Eight headpieces decorate this edition; in the present copy, most have been heightened in watercolour, as has the vignette on the title-page. The copy is further enhanced by an engraved and watercoloured frontispiece illustrating Le Chat botté, partially tipped onto the front pastedown.

Title in brown ink on a paper label on the spine, untrimmed edges. Front board slightly warped, small nicks at head and tail of the spine. First gathering held by a single thread only, the gathering pp. 81–88 is loose, a few minor stains and ink offsets scattered throughout, a 1.5 cm tear in the black-and-white headpiece on p. 65. 

On the title-page. blind stamp of a library with the initials "HB".

Tales by author:

Charles Perrault: Cendrillon, Riquet à la houpe, La Barbe bleue, Le Chat botté, Le Petit Poucet, La Belle au Bois dormant, Le Petit Chaperon rouge, Les Fées

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont: Le Prince Charmant, Les Revenants, Les trois Souhaits

Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baronne d'Aulnoy: L'Île de la Félicité

Anonymous: Le Somnambule

In this edition, the tale Les Fées appears twice.