I had high expectations of Pullman’s reworking of the Grimm fairytales, hoping to replace the battered Penguin copy on my bookshelf with a beautiful new hardback. However, the task of compiling such an anthology seemed too great a feat even for a seasoned master such as Pullman. He has chosen only fifty tales out of a possible two hundred, a choice that has prevented readers from accessing some of the best Grimm tales. While the classics like Rapunzel and Cinderella were enjoyable, they induced only a mild form of nostalgia. The stories also lacked the dark, distinctive voice defining the Dark Materials Trilogy, just as the scarcity of updated language rendered the whole retelling anticlimactic.

This was particularly apparent in The Robber Bridegroom, where a young wife outwits and scares away her rogue husband.  By transforming the archaic language, the magical quality of the tale disappears: Pullman replaces “yonder in the dark green wood” with “it’s out in the forest”, turning the sinister words of a mysterious young man into something excessively ordinary. He makes the tales more accessible by eliminating antiquities such as “thou” but there should have been something more exciting than this. In his introduction, Pullman claims that there “is no psychology in a fairytale” and “no imagery”; things are as “white as snow” or as “red as blood”. It may be true that fairytales are known for their one-dimensional plots and characters but Pullman could have brought his own magic to the underlying sinister tones running through the tales. I didn’t expect Cinderella’s ball to turn a modern day office party but surely Pullman would have been capable of finding that fine balance between a shadowy, modern interpretation and keeping faithful to the original.

The most interesting tales of the collection were the more obscure choices, such as The Girl with No Hands.  This is a gruesome tale where a miller’s daughter has her hands cut off by her father when commanded by the devil, acting as an unsettling presence making the story gripping throughout. The Three Snake Leaves was also excellent, telling the tale of an adulterous wife, who rejected the husband that had brought her back to life. This what somewhat down to the wide variety of imagery surrounding the strange burial of the wife and her affair on a ship in the high seas, which all led to a somewhat cruel ending for a fairytale.

However, Pullman’s greatest achievements were the notes at the end of each tale, outlining its source, the changes inserted and his opinion of it, while sometimes including fascinating quotes from other authors. This was where his voice really shone and these snaps of context allowed the tale to be regarded in a different light, at times revealing something extraordinary. In Snow White, the wicked queen was not transformed into the evil stepmother until the second edition, giving an interesting context to the tale itself and to recent film adaptations.

As the collection is “for young and old”, Pullman plays upon the simplicity of fairytales: children love them because there is always a happy ever after and adults are able to remember the once upon a time of their youth.  Having a promised a “clear water retelling”, Pullman succeeds in this aim but sacrifices the personality and charisma of his own narrative voice along the way, leaving the Grimm fairytales to retain their status as legendary masterpieces.