ABSTRACT
The spread of French children's literature to English-speaking countries may seem surprising. The shelves of bookshops in Britain or in the USA carry only a few translations portraying Jean de Brunhoff's little elephant King Babar or Saint Exupèry's The Little Prince (published in New York in 1943, before being published in Paris in 1945). And yet, stories from the Histoires ou Contes du Temps Passé, published in 1697 by Charles Perrault are in print in innumerable adaptations, and some have been transformed into Walt Disney's galaxy myths: Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are the best known; others are part of British pantomime tradition, such as Puss in Boots— while others such as Riquet with the Tuft or Hop o'my Thumb are less well-known. These stories are set in the ancien regime, but refer to bourgeoisie's ideal of social advancement as it climbed to power. Has this ideal become an integral part of the initiation rites of children throughout the world, and become no longer specifically French?
