 First edition (US) | |
| Author | Idries Shah |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (US) Octagon Press (UK) |
Publication date | December 25, 1979 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 410 |
| ISBN | 0-15-199434-X |
| OCLC | 4858129 |
World Tales, subtitled "The Extraordinary Coincidence of Stories Told in All Times, in All Places" is a book of 65 folk tales collected by Idries Shah from around the world, mostly from literary sources. Some of the tales are very current, others are less well known.
Each story is preceded by a short introduction by the author, giving a brief history of the tale's literary mutations, or remarking on the strange similarities that versions exhibit across great geographical or historical distances. [1] The collection has had a broad appeal. For instance Canadian poet P. K. Page cited it as the book she would give to a child, [2] and author and storyteller Norah Dooley: [3] [4] "This is the book that turned my interest as an adult to folklore and inspired me to take up storytelling." and has become a widely used sourcebook of tales. [5]
Whilst Shah mentions many of the ancient and modern interpretations that have been placed on the tales, along with some of the theories of cross-cultural transmission, he himself interprets them little, writing in the introduction:
Working for thirty-five years among the written and oral sources of our world heritage in tales, one feels a truly living element in them which is startlingly evident when one isolates the 'basic' stories: the ones which tend to have travelled furthest, to have featured in the largest number of classical collections, to have inspired great writers of the past and present.
The value that Shah put on folklore of this kind is clear, not only from the many volumes of tales that he published but also from books published by his children. The title alone of one of his daughter Saira Shah's books, The Storyteller's Daughter, [6] gives some indication, while his son Tahir Shah's book In Arabian Nights , itself an exploration of the power of the folktale, recalls: [7]
When my father died a decade ago, I inherited his library. There were five reinforced boxes of books labeled "STORIES: VALUABLE, HANDLE WITH CARE". Among them were Aesop's Fables, Hans Christian Andersen, and the Brothers Grimm. There were many others too, the Arab collections and volumes of tales from every corner of the world...
The book was first published in large format by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich [8] with each tale illustrated. Originally Shah asked Ivan Tyrrell to find illustrations for the tales by the likes of Arthur Rackham, Kay Nielsen and Edmund Dulac. Tyrrell instead suggested commissioning new work, Shah agreed to this and the idea was put to, and approved by, the publisher, William Jovanovich. [9] Thirty seven artists [10] contributed. This edition is no longer in print; the Octagon Press edition is text only.
Agnes Perkins, writing in the Children's Literature Association Quarterly cited this "lavish" edition of World Tales as an example of books that bridge the gap between illustrated books of folktales published for the juvenile market which pay little attention to sources or to authenticity of tone and language and which supply none of the working tools developed for folklore scholarship which might lead readers to further study of tales from the oral tradition, and collections by folklorists concerned primarily with local variants and the unusual persistence of motifs which ignore questions of the value of the stories from a literary standpoint. [11]
| Title | Origin | The tale | Illustrator in large format edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tales of a Parrot | India | From Parrot Tales (the Persian Tutinama by Nakhshabi), split into three linked tales. Shah's version is taken from an oral narrative collected by the great Italian folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè, [12] though the telling seems to link to a Sanskrit source, the Śukasaptati. [13] | Sue Porter |
| Dick Whittington | England | The familiar pantomime story of Richard Whittington | Ken Laidlaw [14] |
| Don't Count Your Chickens | Spain | The fable behind the proverb, one of many variants of the fable The milkmaid and her pail [15] | James Marsh [16] |
| The Hawk and the Nightingale | Greece | Recorded by Hesiod [17] in his Works and Days . Regarded by many as the earliest fable attributable to a literary work: "The poem also contains the earliest known fable in Greek literature" number 4 in the Perry Index. | Ray Winder |
| Cecino the Tiny | Tuscany | A variant of Tom Thumb [18] | Chris McEwen |
| Her Lover's Heart | India | The ancient story of Raja Rasalu. [19] | David O'Connor |
| The New Hand | USA | Similar to the Brothers Grimm's The Old Man Made Young Again [20] and to unofficial legends of Jesus current in Palestine, [21] this one takes place in Alabama. [22] | Mai Watts |
| The Mastermaid | Norway | From Norwegian Folktales collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe, translated by George Webbe Dasent. | Peter Richardson |
| The Ass in Pantherskin | India | Originates with the Panchatantra, dating at the latest form 500 A.D. and perhaps as old as 100 B.C. | Philip Argent |
Nasreddin or Nasreddin Hodja (1208–1285) is a character in the folklore of the Muslim world from the Balkans to China, and a hero of humorous short stories and satirical anecdotes. There are frequent statements about his existence in real life and even archaeological evidence in specific places, for example, a tombstone in the city of Akşehir, Turkey. At the moment, there is no confirmed information or serious grounds to talk about the specific date or place of Nasreddin's birth, so the question of the reality of his existence remains open.
A fairy tale is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful beings. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies. Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends and explicit moral tales, including beast fables. Prevalent elements include dragons, dwarfs, elves, fairies, pixies, giants, gnomes, goblins, griffins, merfolk, monsters, talking animals, trolls, unicorns, witches, wizards, magic, and enchantments.
Idries Shah, also known as Idris Shah, Indries Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimi and by the pen name Arkon Daraul, was an Afghan author, thinker and teacher in the Sufi tradition. Shah wrote over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies.
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Saira Shah is a British author, reporter and documentary filmmaker. She produces, writes and narrates current affairs films.
Tahir Shah is a British author, journalist and documentary maker of Afghan-Indian descent.
Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah was an Indian-Afghan author and diplomat descended from the Sadaat of Paghman. Born and educated in India, he came to Britain as a young man to continue his education in Edinburgh, where he married a young Scotswoman.
Ivan Tyrrell is a British educator, writer, and artist. He lives with his wife Véronique in the Cotswolds, England.
Amina Maxwell-Hudson was a British anthologiser of Sufi stories and folk tales, and was for many years the Chairperson of the College of Storytellers. She was the sister of the Sufi writers Idries Shah and Omar Ali-Shah, and the daughter of Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah and Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah, a Scottish woman. Her nephew is the travel writer and documentary filmmaker Tahir Shah; her nieces are Safia Shah and the writer and documentary filmmaker Saira Shah.
In Arabian Nights is a travel book by Anglo-Afghan author Tahir Shah illustrated by Laetitia Bermejo. which takes up where his previous book The Caliph's House leaves off, recounting, among much else, events at Dar Khalifa, the Caliph's House, in Casablanca where the Shah family have taken up residence.
Saiyed Muhammed Shah, better known by his title as Jan-Fishan Khan, was a 19th-century Afghan noble chieftain (nawab) He participated in the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–42) and the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and on both occasions, he supported the British. For his services to the British, Khan was granted the estate of Sardhana and is the forefather of the Nawabs of Sardhana.
Safia Thomas is a British writer, editor, television news producer and member of the Afghan-Indian Shah family.
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Learning How to Learn: Psychology and Spirituality in the Sufi Way is a book by the writer Idries Shah that was first published by Octagon Press in 1978. Later editions by Harper & Row (1981) and Penguin Books include an introduction by Nobel Prize Winner Doris Lessing.
Octagon Press was a cross-cultural publishing house based in London, UK. It was founded in 1960 by Sufi teacher, Idries Shah to establish the historical and cultural context for his ideas. The company ceased trading in 2014.
The Idries Shah Foundation (ISF) is an independent educational and cultural charity, set up by the family of the late thinker, writer, and teacher in the Sufi mystical tradition, Idries Shah, who wrote over three dozen books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies.
Margaret Read MacDonald is an American storyteller, folklorist, and award-winning children's book author. She has published more than 65 books, of stories and about storytelling, which have been translated into many languages. She has performed internationally as a storyteller, is considered a "master storyteller", and has been dubbed a "grand dame of storytelling". She focuses on creating "tellable" folktale renditions, which enable readers to share folktales with children easily. MacDonald has been a member of the board of the National Storytelling Network and president of the Children's Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society.
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The Exploits of the Incomparable Mulla Nasrudin is a book by the writer Idries Shah, It consists of jokes and anecdotes involving the wise fool of Middle Eastern folklore, Mulla Nasrudin. Published by Octagon Press in 1966, the book was re-released in paperback, ebook and audiobook editions by The Idries Shah Foundation in 2014 and 2015.
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