THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES And Other

Fourteen tales are included in this elegant but somber collection, the well-known ""Hansel and Gretel,"" ""Snow White,"" and ""Cinderella"" and such lesser known tales as ""The Mongoose"" and ""Thousandfurs."" Quitely told, they are haunted with themes of death, guilt, and punishment. Cinderella comes from church with a dove on one shoulder and a pigeon on the other. The dove pecks out one eye from each of her sisters, and the pigeon pecks out the other. ""And that was their reward for their falseness and wickedness."" In ""Snow White,"" the last image of the book is Snow White's stepmother dancing to death in her red-hot shoes. The illustrations are compelling, with a cold, forbidding beauty. And the whole is a powerful, sober collection of Grimm's tales which stands in interesting contrast to the more lighthearted versions often selected for retelling.