The First Book of Fairy Tales The First Book of Fairy Tales

Volume published in 1952 by Neri Pozza. Pages: 118.
Editorial paperback and cover illustrated by Mario Mirko Vucetich. The work was published with the editorial band that reported the following wording: '' print it large: Fables for adults, that some father will not buy the book with your eyes closed to give it to his son ... Anonymous Italian moralist ''. Inside 25 woodcut illustrations by Mirko Vucetich. Collection of 186 fairy tales accompanied by an introduction.
Gadda writes in the introduction '' These fairy tales, that is small beans or very small fables ... [...] sons dressed like the crazy leaves of a cabbage around the lump as the principle to germinate the head in Panettopoli ''. Just the introduction is one of the most interesting aspects of this work; it contains all the Gaddian philological notions changed and distorted by the irony of the author: written in an entirely archaising Italian, in it Gadda traces with meticulousness the events that led to the writing of fairy tales. Precisely the accuracy of the bibliographic data combined with the imaginative and grotesque language are the Gaddian warning to those philologists who take themselves too seriously.
Even the fable 151, the famous one of the "rabbit" (Mussolini), which one cannot understand what he wants to refer to when he incites "let's go boys", is the apotheosis of an absurd philological research that sacrifices mere reality at the altar the absurd.
But "The book of fairy tales" is not only a criticism of a certain type of philological sterility but also of all that literary-poetic production based on narcissism. The work was initially intended to be released in 1942 but Gadda delayed the delivery of the introduction considerably.
The first title thought by Gadda "Favole" was changed when in the first edition there were no 16 fables already written but delivered late. Thus it was decided to change the title to '' The First Book of Fables '' implicitly suggesting the idea of ​​printing a second volume. 12 copies of the volume have been colored by the illustrator.

Volume published in 1952 by Neri Pozza. Pages: 118.
Editorial paperback and cover illustrated by Mario Mirko Vucetich. The work was published with the editorial band that reported the following wording: '' print it large: Fables for adults, that some father will not buy the book with your eyes closed to give it to his son ... Anonymous Italian moralist ''.