Susan Hill Susan Hill

Pity the poor stepmother — the most reviled character in folk literature

The second wife has been consistently demonised in fairy tales from Snow White onwards

Disney’s wicked queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The stepmother-daughter relationship in fairy tales is doomed from the moment of the father’s remarriage after the death of a saintly wife
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  • The Fairest of Them All: Snow White and 21 Tales of Mothers and Daughters

    Maria Tatar

    Belknap/Harvard, pp. 225, £22

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Because you read about fairy tales

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