Andrew Lang: Into the Kaleidoscope of Fairy Land by Francesca Bihet

Andrew Lang was a central figure in late nineteenth-century British folklore scholarship, best known for his children’s series the Coloured Fairy Books (1889-1910), but also as a writer on an eclectic range of topics from anthropology to psychical research. Fascinated by folk-tales, he wove fairy magic throughout his vast collection of works. “All the incidents of popular tales, like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope, may be shaken into a practically limitless number of combinations.”

Francesca Bihet is an independent scholar, based in the Channel Islands. She completed her PhD, “Folklore and Fairies: the History of Fairies in the Folklore Society from 1878 to 1945”, at the University of Chichester in 2020. As well as contributing articles to several journals, including Gramarye and Revenant, she has published the chapters ‘Pouques and the Faiteaux: the Channel Islands’, in Magical Folk (2018), and ‘Death and the Fairy: Hidden Gardens and the Haunting of Childhood’, in Uncanny Ecogothic Gardens in the Long Nineteenth-Century (2020).