Like Cinderella, the tale of Beauty and the Beast is one of the best-known stories in the world. The history of Beauty and the Beast is quite different from the other stories in the popular fairytale canon.

The earliest versions of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and many others are lost in the pre-Gutenberg era with just a few recorded versions hinting at elusive histories. Many scholars post that those tales began as folklore, passed from generation to generation, from storyteller to storyteller, until enterprising authors published them on rare occasions, capturing them on paper for us to read and enjoy centuries later.

Beauty and the Beast, on the other hand, did not start out strictly as folklore, although it incorporates folkloric elements. It has a discernible birth and history, beginning in 1740 with Madame Gabriel le-Suzanne de Villeneuve, a French writer influenced by the fairytales written by authors, such as Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy and Charles Perrault, in the French salons during the earlier part of the century.

Villeneuve's story did not remain exclusively hers, for it provided the building blocks for another writer, Madame Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, in 1757. While Villeneuve's primary audience was adults, Beaumont’s was children with a didactic message about good manners and behaviour as well as physical beauty. Ultimately, Beaumont greatly bridged and rewrote the tale, giving us the version so well recognised today, but her version wouldn't have existed without Villeneuve's original work.

In the end, Beauty and the Beast continues to be shared and retold to each new generation. New picture books, new novels, and new films appear on a regular basis, exploring the tale, some finding new meanings and subverting old ones while others cherish the original.

Our version of Beauty and the Beast is a spellbinding story of a selfish prince who is destined to spend the rest of his life hidden in his castle in the guise of a grotesque beast. Resourceful, the heroine Belle, our Beauty, rushes to the rescue with her madcap pals. Can our heroine save the day and learn to love the Beast?

We hope you find our version of this classic tale C'est Magnifique!