Now the publisher minedition has brought it back and what a beauty it is. Originally released in America in 1995 by North-South books, the book has long been out-of-print. How thrilled I was then to discover the republication of Wilhelm Hauff and Lisbeth Zwerger’s Dwarf Nose. Obscure European fairytales, however, are rare beasts. Generally speaking they do a very good job of bringing world folktales to the American marketplace. A great gaping hole exists, and into it the smaller publishers of the world have sought to fulfill this need. Folktales and fairytales are widely viewed by book publishers as a dying breed. Thirty or forty years ago you’d sometimes see these books given a life of their own front and center with imaginative picture book retellings. But for every Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty you run into, there’s a Tatterhood or Riquet with the Tuft lurking on the sidelines. There is a perception out there that there are only so many fairytales out there that people really need to know. It seems so funny to me that for all that our culture loves and adores fairytales, scant attention is paid to the ones that can rightfully be called both awesome and obscure.
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