This revised, expanded, and updated edition of the 1979 landmark Breaking the Magic Spell examines the enduring power of fairy tales and the ways they invade our subjective world. In seven provocative essays, Zipes discusses the importance of investigating oral folk tales in their socio-political context and traces their evolution into literary fairy tales, a metamorphosis that often diminished the ideology of the original narrative. Zipes also looks at how folk tales influence our popular beliefs and the ways they have been exploited by a corporate media network intent on regulating the mystical elements of the stories. He examines a range of authors, including the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Ernst Bloch, Tolkien, Bettelheim, and J.K. Rowling to demonstrate the continuing symbiotic relationship between folklore and literature.

Jack Zipes, professor of German and director of the Center for German and European Studies the University of Minnesota, is the author of many books on folk and fairy tales, including Fairy Tale as Myth, Myth as Fairy Tale. He lives in Minneapolis.

"Folklorists, educators and historians will particularly find this resource to be valuable. But educators and parents will also find Zipes's ideas intriguing."-Elizabeth Herron, Folks and Fairies in Action (resourcecenterblog.wordpress.com)