Classic fairy tales, unsoftened

The classics with nothing cut out, the blood, the cruelty and the grim endings included, retold by Talerie in modern English for older readers.

These are the same tales as elsewhere on Talerie, retold closer to the way the old books told them, before later retellings tidied them up. In Cinderella the mother tells her daughters outright to cut off a toe and a heel, and the doves peck out the stepsisters’ eyes, one on the way to church and the other on the way back.

They are labeled so that nobody lands here by accident at bedtime. Every tale in this collection also has a gentler retelling on its own page.

They also run longer: the shortest is a few minutes, the longest goes past an hour. Each carries an age range, and it is worth reading it before you start.