
From “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” (PZ6 1902 P687)
Since we’ll be away on Friday and Monday for the Easter long-weekend, this will be the last new fairy tale post until next week. Happily, today’s fairy tale picks feature one of literature’s favourite rabbits!
Even though the Rare Books and Special Collections reading room is currently closed, we’re excited to share through our blog the delightful results of a student assignment undertaken during the winter 2020 term for the English course “The Victorian Fairy Tale: Text and Image.”
For this assignment, Professor Pamela Dalziel asked her students to “choose five illustrated Victorian fairy tales available in Rare Books and Special Collections that you would like to have in your personal collection.” Some of Professor Dalziel’s students were kind enough to share their final selections with not only the team at RBSC, but also with the public through our blog.
So far we have sixteen assignments that students have been willing to share, some anonymously and some with author credit. I’ll post links to the final assignments a few at a time over the coming weeks. Be sure to read all of the fairy tale assignments kindly shared by Professor Dalziel’s students.

“The Fairy Tales of Science” (PZ6 1866 .B76)
We hope you enjoy these fairy tale selections and will perhaps be inspired to stop by RBSC to see some of the books for yourself once the RBSC reading room has reopened.
Five fairy tale selections, part VI:
- Brownies, soldier’s children, grandmother’s shoes, wet magic, and rabbits!
- Monsters, cats, dogs, snap-dragons, and brown owls