NOTES.
INTRODUCTION.
1. There are some popular tales, chiefly Oriental in their origin, in the Cente novelle antiche (see the notes to Chapter III.), and Boccaccio and his imitators undoubtedly made use of popular material. These popular elements, however, are almost exclusively of the class of jests. The fairy tale, which constitutes by far the largest and most important class of popular tales, is not found in European literature until Straparola. For a few earlier traces of fairy tales in mediæval literature, see an article by the writer, "Two Mediæval Folk-Tales," in the Germania, XVIII. [New Series], p. 203.
2. The little that is known of Straparola and a very complete bibliography of his Piacevoli Notti will be found in an excellent monograph entitled, Giovan Francesco Straparola da Caravaggio, Inaugural-Dissertation von F. W. J. Brakelmann aus Soest, Göttingen, 1867. Straparola's work, especially the unexpurgated editions, is scarce, and the student will ordinarily be obliged to consult it in the French translation of Louveau and Larivey, of which there is an excellent edition in the Bibliothèque Elzevirienne of P. Jannet, Paris, 1857. There is a German translation with valuable notes of the märchen contained in the Piacevoli Notti by F. W. Val. Schmidt, Berlin, 1817. Schmidt used, without knowing it, an expurgated edition, and translated eighteen instead of twenty-two popular tales.
3. The reader will find all the necessary references to Straparola's borrowed materials in Liebrecht's translation of Dunlop's History of Fiction, pp. 283, 493; in Brakelmann's dissertation above cited; in the French version in the Bib. Elzevir.; and in Grimm, II. 477.
4. A comparison of Straparola's tales with those of Grimm, and an analysis of those lacking in Schmidt's translation, will be found in Grimm, II. 477–481.
5. The imitations of Straparola will be found in Dunlop-Liebrecht, p. 284. It is impossible to say with absolute certainty that Perrault borrowed his "Chat Botté" and "Peau d'Ane" from Straparola. It is, however, quite likely. Perrault's stories appeared 1694–97, and twelve editions of the French translation of Straparola had been issued before that date.
