The dwarf's spectacles, and other fairy tales by Max Simon Nordau
"The dwarf's spectacles, and other fairy tales" by Max Simon Nordau is a collection of fairy tales written in the early 20th century. Framed as gentle bedtime fables for a child, the stories feature animals, toys, and humble folk whose misadventures teach clear moral lessons about kindness, humility, gratitude, and prudence. Expect vignettes about a sorrowing nightingale, a world‑weary fly, a proud doll, grateful sparrows, steadfast glow‑worms, and a country lad named
Michel, all rendered with warm, simple charm. The opening of the collection presents a sequence of brief, moral tales: a nightingale loses her brood to a cat, whereupon the rose‑bush grows thorns to protect future nests—and the bird’s song turns forever wistful; Buzz‑Buzz the fly survives winter only to be rejected by heedless youths and drifts into a painless death, underscoring the cycle of life; a girl’s cherished white mouse fears her giant “monster” touch until a fairy lets the child hear the mice speak, teaching that creatures seek their own kind; Aennchen’s grand doll Kunigunde scorns humbler companions and meets a sordid end, a warning against pride; a little girl who feeds sparrows is thrice saved by them—from poisoned sweets, a runaway horse, and even gypsies who abduct her—after which her family honors the birds; six glow‑worms kidnapped to light an owl student’s studies are freed by the very youth, and the meadow revelers rejoice as the owl stops forcing scholarship; and, at the start of the title tale, the honest farmhand Michel is twice swindled on the road, helps a stranded dwarf across a river, receives spectacles that reveal human thoughts, and immediately uses them to avoid undercutting local laborers, who in turn feed and clothe him. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Nordau, Max Simon, 1849-1923 |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Hart, H. A. |
| Illustrator | McGowan, R. |
| Illustrator | Safford, F. P. |
| Translator | Safford, Mary J. (Mary Joanna), 1842-1916 |
| Title | The dwarf's spectacles, and other fairy tales |
| Original Publication | New York: The Macmillan company, 1905. |
| Contents | Why the rose-bush has thorns -- Last year's fly -- Like seeks like -- The proud doll -- The grateful sparrows -- The six little glow-worms -- The dwarf's spectacles -- The golden beetle that went on his travels -- The gold braids -- The cats that wouldn't catch mice -- The elf child -- The rich dog and the poor dog -- The little girl who travelled in the big ship -- The naughty brother and the clever sister -- The master -- The heart thread -- The secret empire -- The tame lion -- The flower prison -- Life and death. |
| Credits | Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres |
| Subject | Fairy tales |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77279 |
| Release Date | Nov 20, 2025 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 278 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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