Histoires ou contes du temps passé
Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités or Contes de ma mère l'Oye is a collection of literary fairy tales written by Charles Perrault, published in Paris in 1697. The work became popular because it was written at a time when fairy tales were fashionable amongst aristocrats in Parisian literary salons. Perrault wrote the work when he retired from court as secretary to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister to Louis XIV of France. Colbert's death may have forced Perrault's retirement, at which point he turned to writing. Scholars have debated as to the origin of his tales and whether they are original literary fairy tales modified from commonly known stories, or based on stories written by earlier medieval writers such as Boccaccio.
Title page of the 1695 manuscript of Charles Perrault's Contes de ma mère l'Oye (The Morgan Library & Museum, New York)
17th-century portrait of Charles Perrault by Philippe Lallemand
Illustration of "Puss in Boots" from the 1695 manuscript of the Contes de ma mère l'Oye
Frontispiece of the only known copy of the first English edition, 1729 (Houghton Library)
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)