The Victorians were wonderful collectors - and one of the things that they began collecting was the folktales of the world. The best-known of these collections, of course, is Grimm's Fairy Tales, which was first published in 1812 with a total of 86 tales, expanding to 211 folktales by 1857. When I was in college, I spent many happy hours in the library stacks, perusing Victorian volumes of folklore and folktales that had been assembled by scores of enthusiastic ethnologists. Some collectors and retellers did their best to keep the stories as they were originally told; others found them a means to convey more contemporary Victorian morals (as you'll see in some of the retellings below). This is but a tiny sampling of the great world of Victorian folktale collections!

The First Translation of Homer (Godey's, 1833)

Two Whom the Gods Loved, by J. Capper (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1875)

A retelling of a Ceylonese folktale that explains the local "singing fish."

The Bridge of San Martin: A Legend of Toledo (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1880)

How a Spanish lady saves her architect husband from the consequences of a rash promise.

Rainbows: An Indian Legend (Girl's Own Paper, 1881)

A retelling of an American Indian story.

The Flight of the Red Horse: A Dakota Legend, by H.E. Warner (Century Magazine, 1884B)

A rhymed version of a Dakota tale.

Legends of the Pasamaquoddy, by Charles G. Leland (Century Magazine, 1884B)

Quadi Indian legends, with birch-bark illustrations.

How Squire Coyote Brought Fire to the Cahrocs, by John Vance Cheney (Century Magazine, 1885A)

An Indian folktale put into verse.

Urashima: A Japanese Rip-Van-Winkle, by Masayuki Kataoka (Century Magazine, 1886B)

Fairy Tales of the World (Girl's Own Paper, 1888)

Cinderella's Ancestor, by Emma Brewer (Girl's Own Paper, 1889)

A Cinderella-type tale dating to ancient Egypt.

The Kyah and His Cow, by M.E. Cawley (Girl's Own Paper, 1895)

A story from India.

The Girl Who Couldn't Hold Her Tongue (Girl's Own Paper, 1896)

Retelling of a folktale about a maiden and a magical bear.

Mercy to Man and Beast (Girl's Own Paper, 1896)

A charming folktale about a horse who gained a judgment for better treatment.

The Japanese Jack the Giant Killer, by Leonard Larkin (Strand, 1901B)

The ancient Japanese tale of a knight tasked to destroy an ogre.