Editing Fairy tale (section)

===Later works===
[[File:Redsun.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Illustration of the Russian fairy tale about Vasilisa the Beautiful, showing a rider on a horse in a forest|[[Ivan Bilibin]] (1876–1942)'s illustration of the [[Russian fairy tale]] about [[Vasilisa the Beautiful]]]]
[[File:The violet fairy book (1906) (14751020284).jpg|thumb|[[Lang's Fairy Books#The Violet Fairy Book (1901)|The Violet Fairy Book]] (1906)|alt=]]
The first collectors to attempt to preserve not only the plot and characters of the tale, but also the style in which they were told, was the [[Brothers Grimm]], collecting German fairy tales; ironically, this meant although their first edition (1812 & 1815)<ref name="timeline"/> remains a treasure for folklorists, they rewrote the tales in later editions to make them more acceptable, which ensured their sales and the later popularity of their work.{{Sfn|Swann Jones|1995|p=40}}

Such literary forms did not merely draw from the folktale, but also influenced folktales in turn. The Brothers Grimm rejected several tales for their collection, though told orally to them by Germans, because the tales derived from Perrault, and they concluded they were thereby [[French folklore|French]] and not German tales; an oral version of "[[Bluebeard]]" was thus rejected, and the tale of ''Little Briar Rose'', clearly related to Perrault's "[[Sleeping Beauty]]", was included only because Jacob Grimm convinced his brother that the figure of [[Brynhildr]], from much earlier [[Norse mythology]], proved that the sleeping princess was authentically [[Germanic mythology|Germanic]] folklore.<ref>{{Cite book|first=G. Ronald|last=Murphy|date=2000|title=The Owl, The Raven, and the Dove: The Religious Meaning of the Grimms' Magic Fairy Tales|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-515169-0}}</ref>

This consideration of whether to keep ''Sleeping Beauty'' reflected a belief common among folklorists of the 19th century: that the folk tradition preserved fairy tales in forms from pre-history except when "contaminated" by such literary forms, leading people to tell inauthentic tales.{{Sfn|Zipes|2007|p=77}} The rural, illiterate, and uneducated peasants, if suitably isolated, were the ''folk'' and would tell pure ''folk'' tales.{{Sfn|Degh|1988|pp=66–67}} Sometimes they regarded fairy tales as a form of fossil, the remnants of a once-perfect tale.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Opie|first1=Iona|last2=Opie|first2=Peter|author1-link=Iona Opie|author2-link=Peter Opie|date=1974|title=The Classic Fairy Tales|page=17|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-211559-1}}</ref> However, further research has concluded that fairy tales never had a fixed form, and regardless of literary influence, the tellers constantly altered them for their own purposes.<ref>{{cite book|last=Yolen|first=Jane|author-link=Jane Yolen|date=2000|page=22|title=Touch Magic|publisher=August House|location=Little Rock, Arkansas|isbn=0-87483-591-7}}</ref>

The work of the Brothers Grimm influenced other collectors, both inspiring them to collect tales and leading them to similarly believe, in a spirit of [[romantic nationalism]], that the fairy tales of a country were particularly representative of it, to the neglect of cross-cultural influence. Among those influenced were the Russian [[Alexander Afanasyev]] (first published in 1866),<ref name="timeline"/> the Norwegians [[Peter Christen Asbjørnsen]] and [[Jørgen Moe]] (first published in 1845),<ref name="timeline"/> the Romanian [[Petre Ispirescu]] (first published in 1874), the English [[Joseph Jacobs]] (first published in 1890),<ref name="timeline"/> and [[Jeremiah Curtin]], an American who collected Irish tales (first published in 1890).{{Sfn|Zipes|2001|p=846}} Ethnographers collected fairy tales throughout the world, finding similar tales in Africa, the Americas, and Australia; [[Andrew Lang]] was able to draw on not only the written tales of Europe and Asia, but those collected by ethnographers, to fill his [[Andrew Lang's Fairy Books|"coloured" fairy books series]].<ref>{{Cite book|first=Andrew|last=Lang|date=1904|title=The Brown Fairy Book|chapter-url=http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/brown.htm|chapter=Preface|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070304094615/http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/brown.htm|archive-date=4 March 2007}}</ref> They also encouraged other collectors of fairy tales, as when [[Yei Theodora Ozaki]] created a collection, ''Japanese Fairy Tales'' (1908), after encouragement from Lang.<ref>{{Cite book|first=Yei Theodora|last=Ozaki|title=Japanese Fairy Tales|chapter-url=https://www.surlalunefairytales.com/books/japan/ozaki/preface.html|chapter=Preface|via=Sur La Lune}}</ref> Simultaneously, writers such as [[Hans Christian Andersen]] and [[George MacDonald]] continued the tradition of literary fairy tales. Andersen's work sometimes drew on old folktales, but more often deployed fairytale motifs and plots in new tales.{{Sfn|Clute|Grant|1997|loc="Hans Christian Andersen"|pp=26–27}} MacDonald incorporated fairytale motifs both in new literary fairy tales, such as ''[[The Light Princess]]'', and in works of the genre that would become fantasy, as in ''[[The Princess and the Goblin]]'' or ''[[Lilith (novel)|Lilith]]''.{{Sfn|Clute|Grant|1997|loc="George MacDonald"|p=604}}