Aulnoy online
In April 2018 I reported on the miraculous survival of a complete four-volume set of the first edition of Madame d’Aulnoy’s first collection of fairy tales, Les Contes des fées, in the Württembergische Landesbibliothek (WLB) in Stuttgart. Today I am pleased to announce that volumes 3 and 4 of this set have been digitized and made available online:
These digitizations supplement those of the first two volumes that were published by the University of Colorado and the Biblioteca nacional de España (BNE), respectively:
Les Contes des fées, volume 1 (version “A”)
Les Contes des fées, volume 1 (version “B”)
As I noted previously, volume 1 was produced in two versions, with most of the text printed from different settings of type. In addition, not all copies include the engraved frontispiece. Version “A” is preserved at the University of Colorado (without frontispiece) and Princeton University (with frontispiece), while version “B” exists at BNE and Forschungsbibliothek Gotha (both without frontispiece) and WLB (with frontispiece). Another copy, apparently without frontispiece, is held by Uniwersytet Wrocławski; I have not yet been able to determine whether it represents version “A” or “B.”
Copies of volume 2 are preserved by BNE, WLB, Gotha, and Studienbibliothek Dillingen. Volume 3 seems to exist only in Stuttgart (with frontispiece) and Dillingen (without frontispiece). Volume 4 has so far been located only at WLB Stuttgart, making the new digitizations all the more precious.
Apart from these library holdings, only very few copies have been documented in private collections – early editions of Les Contes des fées continue to be exceedingly scarce.
As for the first edition of Madame d’Aulnoy’s second collection of tales, Contes nouveaux ou les fées à la mode, the first two volumes can be consulted on Gallica:
Contes nouveaux, volume 1 (lacking the engraved frontispiece)
Contes nouveaux, volume 2 (with the misbound Epistre in verse, which belongs in volume 1)
Copies of volumes 1 and/or 2 also exist in Verdun, Laon, Neuchâtel, and Budapest. Volumes 3 and 4, on the other hand, are extremely rare: the only known copy in libraries continues to be that of the Hispanic Society of America in New York, which holds a complete four-volume set. A digital version has not been made available, but images can be purchased from the Hispanic Society.
Volker Schröder
July 3, 2026