The Elder Millennial Chronicles

Once upon a time, stories had teeth.

Somewhere along the way, the wolf got a stomach-ache instead of a supper, the woodsman learned to arrive exactly on time, and everybody got a ribbon for taking part.

Not here.

The Elder Millennial Chronicles gathers twenty of the oldest tales in the world and tells them the old way. Liars are not believed. Thieves are followed home. Nobody is coming to save the people who did not save themselves. The boy who cried wolf is not rescued. There is no woodsman in Grandmother's cottage. The stepsisters do not get a second chance.

Each tale is written to be read aloud, in the voice of a dry old storyteller by the fire, and each stops one breath before the worst part. The silence after the last line does the rest.

Inside you'll find

• Twenty classic fables and fairy tales, from Aesop to the Brothers Grimm, each retold on a single page
• The moral of every story printed at the top, plain and unsoftened
• Sixty ink-and-watercolour plates, three per tale: the set-up, the mistake, and the moment just before it all goes wrong
• A note on where each tale comes from, and what the older versions really said

Included: The Three Little Pigs, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, The Gingerbread Man, The Ant and the Grasshopper, Henny Penny, The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats, The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs, The Scorpion and the Frog, Rumpelstiltskin, Cinderella, Snow White, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Humpty Dumpty, The Frogs Who Wanted a King, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

For brave children, and the grown-ups who read to them. A note for grown-ups: these are the old versions. Read them yourself first.