SOURCE: Chappell, Fred. “Not for Children Only.” Washington Post Book World (9 May 1993): 2.

In the following review, Chappell offers praise for The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales, lauding Lurie's diverse selections of material.

In such an anthology as Alison Lurie's The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales we should expect to find, as we do, familiar classics like George MacDonald's “The Light Princess,” shining discoveries like Joan Aiken's “The Man Who Had Seen the Rope Trick,” and stories whose classification as fairy tale is debatable—like Ursula LeGuin's “The Wife's Story.” Perhaps also we should be disappointed not to find a genuine clinker or two; here Donald Barthelme's cutesy and embarrassingly self-conscious “The Glass Mountain” fulfills that dutiful dim role. And I suppose that we ought to be able to mourn the absence of old favorites like Rudyard Kipling's “Weland's Sword” and Saki's “The Story-Teller.”

That is because...