Part of Series
Câmpan Verde și Frumos” (poveste populară românească) „Petru Cenușă” (poveste populară românească) „Un ochi râde, unul plânge” (poveste populară românească) „Voinic de Plumb” (poveste populară românească) „Pe aripile Vulturului” (poveste babiloniană) „Uriașul de piatră ” (poveste hittită) „Ochii Adevărului” (poveste egipteană antică) „Insula șarpelui proroc” (poveste din vremea vechilor faraoni) „Ursita fiului de faraon” (poveste veche egipteană) „Frații învrăjbiți” (poveste egipteană străveche) „Învățatul Satmi și fiul său, Senosiris” (poveste egipteana din vremea ultimilor faraoni) „Înțeleptul Solomon și vicleanul Asmodeu” (poveste populară israelită) „Omul cu toiag de abanos” (poveste din India veche) „Crăiasa albinelor albe” (poveste indoneziană din Borneo) „În căutarea soarelui” (poveste chineză) „Penelul fermecat” (poveste chineză) „Povestea grăuntelui de orz” (poveste tibetană) „Pescarul și fiica regelui marii” (veche poveste japoneză) „Demonul cascadei Niagara” (veche poveste irocheză din America de Nord) „Floarea podișurilor pustii” (poveste aztecă) „Vrăjitorul fără oase” (veche legendă peruviană)
Authors
Petre Ispirescu was a Romanian editor, folklorist, printer and publicist. He is best known for his work as a gatherer of Romanian folk tales, recounting them with a remarkable talent. Petre Ispirescu began to publish Romanian folk stories in 1862, at the incentive of N. Filimon. His first collection of six folk tales appears in Taranul Roman and later as a booklet. Subsequently these tales were added to his renowned collection Romanian Fairy Tales, today a bibliographic rarity. He resumes his publishing work in 1872 with the collection Romanian Folk Tales. Riddles and Proverbs with a preface by B.P. Hasdeu, followed by Folk Anecdotes and Folk Tales in 1874 and The Life and Feats of Mihai Viteazu in 1876. He is praised for the deep and invaluable knowledge of the Romanian folk works.
Ion Creangă was a Moldavian-born Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th century Romanian literature, he is best known for his Childhood Memories volume, his novellas and short stories, and his many anecdotes. Creangă's main contribution to fantasy and children's literature includes narratives structured around eponymous protagonists (Povestea lui Harap Alb, Ivan Turbincă, Dănilă Prepeleac), as well as fairy tales indebted to conventional forms (Povestea porcului, Capra cu trei iezi, Soacra cu trei nurori). Like Swift or Mark Twain, Creangă is more than a story-teller for children or simply a humorist. His work is a human and social document of the ways of thinking and the life of a Romanian village in the nineteenth century. It may seem of restricted interest, owing to the local peasant setting, as well as to the language in which it was written; it carries nevertheless all the joy and pathos of a book of universal significance. Creangă's Memories symbolically picture the destiny of every child walking the path toward maturity and experience. The work inaugurates an original formula in the art of memoir writing, and represents a monument of high spirits and verbal abundance. A jovial verbal torrent, a kind of lexical spree, generously flushes this rhapsody of perennial childhood.
