Lucky Hans And Other Merz Fairy Tales

Kurt Schwitters revolutionized the art world in the 1920s with his Dadaist Merz collages, theater performances, and poetry. But at the same time he was also writing extraordinary fairy tales that were turning the genre upside down and inside out. Lucky Hans and Other Merz Fairy Tales is the first collection of these subversive, little-known stories in any language and the first time all but a few of them have appeared in English. Translated and introduced by Jack Zipes, one of the world's leading authorities on fairy tales, this book gathers thirty-two stories written between 1925 and Schwitters's death in 1948--including a complete English-language recreation of The Scarecrow, a children's book illustrated with avant-garde typography that Schwitters created with Kate Steinitz and De Stijl founder Theo van Doesburg. Lucky Hans and Other Merz Fairy Tales also includes brilliant new illustrations that evoke the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Schwitters wrote these darkly humorous, satirical, and surreal tales at a time when traditional German fairy tales were being co-opted by the Nazis. Filled with sharp critiques of German life during the Weimar and early Nazi eras, Schwitters's tales are rich with absurdist events and insist that not everyone--and perhaps not anyone--lives happily ever after. In "Lucky Hans," the starving protagonist tries to catch a rabbit only to have it shed its fur like a coat and run off naked into the forest. In other tales, a sarcastic gypsy stands in for a fairy godmother and an army recruit is arrested for growing to monstrous size. Lucky Hans and Other Merz Fairy Tales is a delightfully strange and surprising book.

When his seven years' wages in gold prove too heavy to carry easily, Hans trades the lump of gold for one thing after another until he arrives home empty-handed, but convinced he is a lucky man to be unfettered with encumbrances.

After the death of her husband, Rebecca turned to God for everything. She was alone and needed God more than ever. This personal relationship with God became so intense that she experienced Him in ways she never dreamed were possible. Rebecca’s journey began when she became convinced God used a man she named Adam to awaken her passion to be a married lady again. When Rebecca shared every little detail of her life with God, she felt certain God orchestrated the funniest situations to give her confidence as she traveled into unknown territory. She insisted God was being playful with her and wanted her to relax and trust that He was the one that was in control. Those times Rebecca experienced doubt, God did some remarkable things to prove He was with her. As a result she developed a boldness to do what she believed God was asking of her. God always confirmed the decisions she made were the stepping-stones leading to her destiny. She learned God was pleased by her faith that she entrusted to Him alone. God demonstrated two-way communication with Him was not only possible but was necessary in order to turn her dreams into reality. This two-way conversation brought her relationship with God to a deeper level. She knew He had prepared the way that would lead her to her future husband. Rebecca claims God is still in the match making business and is the best dating coach any person could ask for because Father knows best. All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to a mobile ministry that gives women who are facing unplanned pregnancies image clear ultrasounds free of charge. When women are in crisis due to an unwanted pregnancy they need to know that God loved them at “First Sight.” Hopefully with knowledge of this truth these women will now be willing to “step out on a maybe” and trust God to work out a solution that begins with them choosing life for the child within.

When his seven years' wages in gold prove too heavy to carry easily, Hans trades the lump of gold for one thing after another until he arrives home empty-handed, but convinced he is a lucky man to be unfettered with encumbrances.

GERMAN POPULAR STORIES BY THE BROTHERS GRIMM A reprint of the famous Brothers Grimm book of fairy tales, German Popular Stories (a.k.a. Children's and Household Tales or Kinder- und Hausmarchen). This book, published for the centenary of the 1812 Children's and Household Tales, 'radically changed the destiny of what we today call the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm'. The book features the 1868 book of Edgar Taylor's translations of the Brothers Grimm, the first translations of the tales into English, which included reprints of the first two editions of 1823 and 1826 of the Grimms' stories in one volume, plus the original notes by Taylor. The book is illustrated with remarkable drawings by one of the great artists of the Victorian era, George Cruikshank, with an introduction by John Ruskin. The wealth of additional material includes letters by Sir Walter Scott and the Grimms, a note on Cruikshank, extracts from Gammer Grethel, Taylor's follow-up Grimm book, and R. Meek's Introduction to the 1876 edition of Grimm's Goblins: Grimm's Household Stories. Many famous fairy tales are included here, making their first, influential appearance in English: 'The Fisherman and his Wife', 'Tom Thumb', 'The Elves and the Shoemaker', 'King Grisly-beard', 'The Juniper Tree', 'Hansel and Gretel', and 'Snow White'. Edited and introduced by renowned writer and authority on fairy tales, Jack Zipes, professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. In addition to his scholarly work, he is an active storyteller in public schools and has worked with children's theaters in Europe and the United States. Some of Jack Zipes' major publications include Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales (1979), Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion (1983, rev. ed. 2006), Don't Bet On the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England (1986), The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World (1988), Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter (2000), Speaking Out: Storytelling and Creative Drama For Children (2004), Hans Christian Andersen: The Misunderstood Storyteller (2005), Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre (2006), and a guide to fairy tales cinema (2011). Jack Zipes has also translated The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (1987) and edited The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (2000), and The Great Fairy Tale Tradition (2001). Most recently he has translated and edited The Folk and Fairy Tales of Giuseppe Pitre (2008) and Lucky Hans and Other Merz Fairy Tales (2008) by Kurt Schwitters. Includes illustrations, bibliography, appendices and notes. ISBN 9781861713964. 432 pages. www.crmoon.com"

"Although the influence of the Brothers Grimm on folklore in virtually every country in the West has been widely studied, a similar development in the early part of twentieth-century China is virtually unknown. This book collects and translates more than 40 tales selected from the "Lin Lan" series, published in China from the late 1920s to the early 1930s. The pseudonym "Lin Lan" was created in 1924, when a group of three literary stories about the legendary Xu Wenchang (1521-1593), himself the author of many literary works still popular today, were published in a morning newspaper. The success of this first attempt encouraged the creators to publish more folk tales and fairy tales, which ultimately played a major role in the development of modern folk literature in China. The series, written and developed by a Shanghai publisher under the pen name Lin Lan, was divided into three subgenres-minjian chuanshuo (folk legends/tales), minjian tonghua (folk fairy tales), and minjian qushi (comic folk tales)-published in 43 volumes containing nearly one thousand tales in all. The tales were collected the tales from oral storytellers throughout China in response to a call from the publisher, and combined elements of European fairy-tale literature with traditional Chinese narratives"--