Andrew Lang 
The Book Of Princes And Princesses 

All the stories about Princes and Princesses in this book are true stories out of old books of history. There are some children who make life difficult by saying, first that stories about fairies are true, and that they like fairies; and next that they do not like true stories about real people, who lived long ago. I am quite ready to grant that there really are such things as fairies, because, though I never saw a fairy, any more than I have seen the little animals which lecturers call molecules and ions, still I have seen people who have seen fairies – truthful people. Now I never knew a lecturer who ventured to say that he had seen an ion or a molecule. It is well known, and written in a true book, that the godmother of Joan of Arc had seen fairies, and nobody can suppose that such a good woman would tell her godchild what was not true – for example, that the squire of the parish was in love with a fairy and used to meet her in the moonlight beneath a beautiful tree. In fact, if we did not believe in fairy stories, who would care to read them? Yet only too many children dislike to read true stories, because the people in them were real, and the things actually happened. Is not this very strange?

This book is illustrated and annotated with a rare extensive biographical sketch of the author, Andrew Lang, written by Sir Edmund Gosse, CB, a contemporary poet and writer.

Contents:

Napoleon
His Majesty The King Of Rome
The Princess Jeanne
Hacon The King
Mi Reina! Mi Reina!
Henriette The Siege Baby
The Red Rose
The White Rose
Richard The Fearless
Frederick And Wilhelmine
Une Reine Malheureuse
The ‘Little Queen’
Two Little Girls And Their Mother
The Troubles Of Queen Elizabeth