The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories
- First published:
- 19th century
- Language: English
- Content type: FictionJuvenile
"The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories" by George MacDonald is a collection of fairy tales written in the late 19th century. The first story introduces readers to royal characters, including a king and queen who long for children, leading to the birth of a unique princess cursed with the inability to experience gravity due to the malice of her wicked aunt, Princess Makemnoit. This premise sets the stage for an imaginative exploration of themes like lightness and seriousness, destiny and free will, and the challenges of love. At the start of the collection, the narrative unfolds with the discovery of a princess who floats because her aunt's curse has stripped her of all gravity. Her parents, the king and queen, react with disbelief and concern as their daughter defies the laws of nature, causing various amusing and dangerous situations. As the princess grows, she becomes endearingly careless, bringing laughter and chaos into the palace. The unfolding of her unique predicament illustrates both the charm of childlike wonder and the perils of neglect and misunderstanding from her parents and courtiers. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Provenance
Why this book is in the catalog
Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Legendary beings and transformations and Mythology, folklore, and sacred legends.
Controlled discovery queries from openlibrary-historical matched “Fairies”. Retained metadata contains “Fairies” in the subject metadata.
- “Fairies”· via Open Library
- “Fairies”· in subject
Controlled discovery queries from online-books-page, openlibrary-historical, and project-gutenberg matched “Fairy tales”, “folklore”, “mythology”, and 2 additional term(s). Retained metadata contains “Fairy tales” in the description, “Tales” in the description, “Fairy tales” in the subject metadata, and 1 additional metadata match(es).
- “Fairy tales”· via The Online Books Page
- “Tales”· via The Online Books Page
- “Fairy tales”· via Open Library
- “Tales”· via Open Library
- “folklore”· via Project Gutenberg
- “mythology”· via Project Gutenberg
Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.
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Editions
Open Library reports 45 editions; 2 cataloged here.
| Edition | Date | Publisher | Language | ISBN | Access | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Online Books Page curated catalog record | — | — | — | — | Source listed online copy | |
Project Gutenberg electronic edition Project Gutenberg metadata does not identify the source print edition. | 2006-07-12 | Project Gutenberg | English | — | Public |
Subjects
Identifiers & provenance
How this record was assembled, and the authority identifiers it carries.
Identifiers
- ISBN-13
- ISBN-10
- Open Library work
- Project Gutenberg
Cataloged from
- The Online Books Pageolbp38609 (opens in a new tab)
- Open LibraryOL260306W (opens in a new tab)
- Project Gutenberg18811 (opens in a new tab)
Found via
Cataloging notes
- Open Library reports 45 editions; this snapshot catalogs one representative edition and preserves work-level ISBN, date, and publisher aggregates.
- Original print publication date and source edition are absent from Project Gutenberg metadata.
- Catalog id
- openlibrary-work:OL260306W
- Edition coverage
- Multi source partial
- Retrieved











