Proofed and corrected from the original edition for enjoyable reading. (Worth every penny spent!)
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"Tales of Passed Times," is a book of fables with morals. Written in French by Charles Perrault, and translated, or as the title page indicates "Englished" by R. S. Gent.
These stories which may be said to be as old as the race itself—-certainly their germs are to be found in the oldest literature and among the oldest folk-tales in the world were orally current for many years in France and the neighboring countries in nearly the form in which Perrault wrote them.
There is an opinion that the stories as first published by Perrault, were not really written by him, but by his little son of ten or eleven, to whom Perrault told the stories as he gathered them up with the intention of rendering them in verse after the manner of La Fontaine.
The son had an excellent memory, much natural wit, and a great gift of expression. He loved the stories his father told him and thoroughly enjoyed the task his father set him of rewriting them from memory, as an exercise. This- was happily done, in such a fresh artless and engaging style, exactly befitting the subjects of the stories, that the father found the son's version better than the one he had contemplated and gave this to the world instead.
This collection went through a few editions in England and in America, and then under the influence of the dreary tendencies of the time, when in the literature produced for children during the "age of prose and reason" the didactic element overshadowed everything else, and every bit of literary jam was made to conceal a nauseous powder of knowledge, the fables were neglected for a long time, though they continued to live in the hearts and minds of children and their mothers and nurses.
