Smack-Bam, or The Art of Governing Men: Political Fairy Tales of Édouard Laboulaye

"Smack-Bam, or The Art of Governing Men collects sixteen tales by Édouard Laboulaye, a French law professor and jurist of the Second Empire, and a strong supporter of the abolition of slavery and of women’s rights. Laboulaye’s creative work has been eclipsed by his political career, but in his day he was recognized as a writer of fiction, too, and especially known for his fairy-tales—with their satirical asides, irreverent humor, and free use of international sources, it is not hard to see why."—James Guida, New York Review of Books

"The tales are delightful, and they offer a look at a little-known aspect of fairy tale history contemporary with the tale collectors and writers from the nineteenth century."—Sarah N Lawson, Journal of Folklore Research

“In this collection, Jack Zipes, the most important fairy-tale scholar of his generation, revives the considerable work of nineteenth-century French jurist and politician Édouard Laboulaye, whose fairy tales have not been previously anthologized, much less republished or critically studied. This latest discovery is a welcome one, and Zipes’s translations of the tales are extremely well done.” —Domna C. Stanton, coeditor of Enchanted Eloquence: Fairy Tales by Seventeenth-Century French Women Writers

“Édouard Laboulaye’s witty stories have been overlooked by anthologizers and translators alike since the late nineteenth century. Smack-Bam, or The Art of Governing Men presents new translations of his fairy tales in a modern edition. Bringing to the English-speaking world a writer famous in his day who slipped through the cracks of history, this collection fills a gap and is well worth our attention.” —Christine A. Jones, editor of Mother Goose Reconfigured: A Critical Translation of Charles Perrault’s Fairy Tales