Charles Perrault was a French author and member of the Académie Française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from earlier folk tales, published in his 1697 book Histoires ou contes du temps passé. The best known of his tales include "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge", "Cendrillon" ("Cinderella"), "Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté", "La Belle au bois dormant", and "Barbe Bleue" ("Bluebeard").
Portrait (detail) by Charles Le Brun, c. 1670
Perrault in an early 19th-century engraved frontispiece
Portrait of Perrault, c. 1685–1700 (the visible date of 1671 is when he was elected to the French Academy)
A fairy tale is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends and explicit moral tales, including beast fables. Prevalent elements include dragons, dwarfs, elves, fairies, giants, gnomes, goblins, griffins, merfolk, monsters, talking animals, trolls, unicorns, witches, wizards, magic, and enchantments.
The European fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf in a painting by Carl Larsson in 1881.
Hop-o'-My-Thumb and the ogre in an 1865 illustration
A picture by Gustave Doré of Mother Goose reading written (literary) fairy tales
Ivan Bilibin (1876-1942)'s illustration of the Russian fairy tale about Vasilisa the Beautiful