Volume 12, Issue 2 (1998)

From the Editor

The April 2000 issue of Marvels & Tales will be a special issue on feminism and fairy tales. The title of the special issue, "Fairy Tale Liberation--Thirty Years Later," refers to the fact that in the year 2000 it will have been three decades since the New York Review of Books published Alison Lurie's 1970 article, "Fairy Tale Liberation." That essay and its 1971 sequel, "Witches and Fairies: Fitzgerald to Updike," incited Marcia Liebermans well-known critical response--"'Some Day My Prince Will Come': Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale"--and acted as the catalyst that provoked increased feminist attention to the fairy tale. Since then the discussion about gender and fairy tales has continued-internationally and from a wide variety of perspectives. As a result we have seen new directions in fairy-tale scholarship, popular books based on the feminist critique of fairy tales, public controversies about the role of fairy tales in society, new courses in schools and universities, and innovative anthologies and adaptations for both children and adults in literature, film, and other media.