Croatian Tales of Long Ago
Croatian Tales of Long Ago (Croatian: Priče iz davnine lit. "Stories from Ancient Times"), is a short story collection written by the acclaimed children's author Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić (sometimes spelled as "Ivana Berlić-Mažuranić" in English), originally published in 1916 in Zagreb by the Matica hrvatska publishing house. The collection is considered her masterpiece and it features a series of newly written fairy tales heavily inspired by motifs taken from ancient Slavic mythology of pre-Christian Croatia.
Cover of the 1924 London edition | |
| Author | Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić |
|---|---|
| Original title | Priče iz davnine |
| Translator | F.S. Copeland |
| Illustrator | Vladimir Kirin |
| Country | Croatia |
| Language | Croatian |
| Genre | Children's short story collection |
| Publisher | Matica hrvatska |
Publication date | 1916 |
Published in English | 1922 (New York) 1924 (London) |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 258 pp (New York edition) |
Croatian Tales of Long Ago are seen as one of the most typical examples of her writing style which has been compared by literary critics to Hans Christian Andersen and J. R. R. Tolkien due to the way it combines original fantasy plots with folk mythology.
The collection was translated into English by F.S. Copeland and first published in New York in 1922 by the Frederick A. Stokes Co. and in 1924 in London by the George Allen & Unwin publishing house, the same company which originally published J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit in 1937, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy in 1954–55. The English-language editions also featured illustrations by the Croatian illustrator Vladimir Kirin.