Sleeping Beauty: Original Authors
- Kitty
- Dec 17, 2016
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 18
The fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty is one of the most well known fairy tales, but it actually has a lot of versions and different authors as part of it's history!
I spent a lot of time researching the history of Sleeping Beauty when writing my fantasy retelling: Sleeping Beauty. Normally I only spend one blog post that looks at both the original fairy tale and the authors, but Sleeping Beauty is getting this bonus post where I look at the many authors and origins of the stories because they are so fascinating. But worry not–I’m still going to rip the original fairy tale to shreds in a sarcastic summary in this other blog post!
Now, onto the research!
My rendition of Sleeping Beauty is a little different from all my other stories, because it is a combination of two fairy tales: Sleeping Beauty, and Little Briar Rose.
If I’m being picky, my Sleeping Beauty was based on more than two fairy tales, because the Brothers Grimm actually collected quite a few stories that all share elements of sleeping beauty, but the classic one that inspired Disney’s sleeping beauty, and the story I drew the most from, is Little Briar Rose. The Brothers Grimm published their first collection of fairy tales in 1812, and became the creators of folklore studies. Little Briar Rose was one of the many orally told stories they collected, and they were able to trace its origins to Charles Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty–which we will jump into below. The Brothers Grimm story shares the same basic plot as Perrault’s story, however, it is essentially chopped in half, and also cleaned up a bit.
Moving on! Sleeping Beauty was published in French by Charles Perrault in 1697. (Perrault’s name might sound familiar, as he also published versions of Puss in Boots and Cinderella.) Though Perrault crafted the most recognizable elements of sleeping beauty as we know it today, he actually based his story on the a fairy tale written by an Italian poet, Giambattista Basile. The story–which was published in 1634, after Basile died–was called Sun, Moon, and Talia.
Sun, Moon, and Tailia, in turn, was based off several folk stories–including a chapter/episode of a lyrical poetry series titled Perceforest that was collected in the early 1300s. The specific sleeping beauty chapter is titled Histoire de Troïlus et de Zellandine, and is considered the first of its kind–AKA the first of the sleeping princess stories as there are quite a few.
Overall, the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty is a lot like Wild Swans in that there are a lot of variations out there that are considered separate stories, but they all fall under one type.
In my sarcastic summary blog post we’ll actually dive into the original story, but it is worth mentioning that Perrault–and as a result the Brothers Grimm–removed some of the ickier elements that are included in Sun, Moon, and Talia, and Perceforest. (The biggest issue being the sleezebag of a prince who finds the sleeping princess.)
If you're interested in reading a sweet romantasy Sleeping Beauty retelling you can try my standalone book in Kindle Unlimited or ebook and paperback!
