Illustrations.
Net $1.60. By mail $1.75.
THE RED BOOK OF HEROES. By Mrs. Lang. With 8
Coloured Plates and 40 other Illustrations.
Net $1.60. By mail $1.75.
THE LILAC FAIRY BOOK. With 6 Coloured Plates and
46 other Illustrations. Net $1.60. By mail $1.75.

* * * * *

TALES OF TROY AND GREECE. By Andrew Lang.
With 17 Illustrations by H. J. Ford, and a Map. Crown
8vo. Net $1.50. By mail $1.62.

* * * * *

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., NEW YORK

[Illustration: "How the King found the girl playing at ball in the
orchard."]

THE

LILAC FAIRY BOOK

EDITED BY

ANDREW LANG

[Illustration]

_WITH 6 COLOURED PLATES AND
NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. J. FORD_

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
LONDON, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA
1910

_Copyright, 1910_

BY

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

_All rights reserved_

THE - PLIMPTON - PRESS
[W - D - O]
NORWOOD - MASS - U - S - A

_PREFACE_

'WHAT cases are you engaged in at present?' 'Are you stopping many teeth
just now?' 'What people have you converted lately?' Do ladies put these
questions to the men--lawyers, dentists, clergymen, and so forth--who
happen to sit next them at dinner parties?

I do not know whether ladies thus indicate their interest in the
occupations of their casual neighbours at the hospitable board. But if
they do not know me, or do not know me well, they generally ask 'Are you
writing anything now?' (as if they should ask a painter 'Are you
painting anything now?' or a lawyer 'Have you any cases at present?').
Sometimes they are more definite and inquire 'What are you writing now?'
as if I must be writing something--which, indeed, is the case, though I
dislike being reminded of it. It is an awkward question, because the
fair being does not care a bawbee what I am writing; nor would she be
much enlightened if I replied 'Madam, I am engaged on a treatise
intended to prove that Normal is prior to Conceptional Totemism'--though
that answer would be as true in fact as obscure in significance. The
best plan seems to be to answer that I have entirely abandoned mere
literature, and am contemplating a book on 'The Causes of Early Blight
in the Potato,' a melancholy circumstance which threatens to deprive us
of our chief esculent root. The inquirer would never be undec