Volume 17, Issue 1 (2003)

From the Editor

This special issue of Marvels & Tales includes papers that were presented at a conference hosted by the Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton University on 30–31 March 2001. That memorable conference—organized by Andrea Immel, U. C. Knoepflmacher, and Jan Susina—brought together fairy-tale scholars from Canada, Germany, Sweden, and the United States to engage the program’s theme—Considering the Kunstmärchen: The History and Development of Literary Fairy Tales— from a variety perspectives. The conference not only bore witness to the good sense in considering and reconsidering the literary fairy tale in light of the developments that have occurred in fairy-tale scholarship over the last three decades (and in particular since the Princeton University conference on Fairy Tales and Society in 1984); it also demonstrated the vitality of fairy-tale studies itself as a coherent field of research—a field that exemplifies not simply the value, but also the very necessity of cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives and conversations. For this reason, there could be no better forum for the publication of these important papers than Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies. The editors of Marvels & Tales are grateful to Andrea Immel and Jan Susina for serving as the Guest Editors of this special issue.