Molly Clark Hillard. Spellbound: The Fairy Tale and the Victorians. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2014 [Book Review]

In her book Spellbound: The Fairy Tale and the Victorians Molly Clark Hillard explores the relationship that the Victorians had with the fairy-tale genre, and successfully captures the complexity inherent in that relation-ship. On the one hand, fairy tales were often disregarded as childish and insignificant; the genre was, as J. R. R. Tolkien once suggested, “relegated to the playroom.” Paradoxically, at the same time as they were pushed aside, fairy tales were also integral to Victorian culture and influenced key literary works in significant ways. Indeed, as Hillard argues, “fairy tales contributed significantly to the language and images of material, industrial England”.