This work aims to get behind the myths and present the real Bluebeard, Gilles de Rais, one of the most enduring baddies of history. His infamy lives on, the precursor of our own time's serial killers and a founding father of the cult of the child-snatching bogeyman.

“Ranks with Vonnegut’s best and goes one step beyond . . . joyous, soaring fiction.”—The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Broad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn. But then a voluptuous young widow badgers Rabo into telling his life story—and Vonnegut in turn tells us the plain, heart-hammering truth about man’s careless fancy to create or destroy what he loves. Praise for Bluebeard “Vonnegut is at his edifying best.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer “The quicksilver mind of Vonnegut is at it again. . . . He displays all his talents—satire, irony, ridicule, slapstick, and even a shaggy dog story of epic proportions.”—The Cincinnati Post “[Kurt Vonnegut is] a voice you can trust to keep poking holes in the social fabric.”—San Francisco Chronicle “It has the qualities of classic Bosch and Slaughterhouse Vonnegut. . . . Bluebeard is uncommonly feisty.”—USA Today “Is Bluebeard good? Yes! . . . This is vintage Vonnegut—good wine from his best grapes.”—The Detroit News “A joyride . . . Vonnegut is more fascinated and puzzled than angered by the human stupidities and contradictions he discerns so keenly. So hop in his rumble seat. As you whiz along, what you observe may provide some new perspectives.”—Kansas City Star

A study of the ever-evolving fairy tale about the murderous aristocrat and his endangered wife

The author presents a penetrating analysis of the collapse of Western culture during the last half of the twentieth century

By turns humorous and warm, stark and frightening, Bluebeard's Egg infuses a Canada of the 1940s, '50s and '80s with glowing childhood memories, the harsh realities of parents growing old, and the casual cruelty that men and women inflict on each other. Here is the familiar outer world of family summers at remote lakes, winters of political activism, and seasons of exotic friends, mudane lives and unexpected loves. But here too is the inner world of hidden places and all that emerges from them—the intimately personal, the fantastic and the shockingly real...whether it's what lies in a mysterious locked room or in the secret feelings we all conceal.

Rare edition with unique illustrations. Along with the collections of Andersen, Lang, and the Brothers Grimm, the Fairy tales of Charles Perrault is among the great books of European fairy tales. These stories have been enjoyed by generation after generation of children in many countries, and are here, waiting to be enjoyed again. "Blue beard" is a French folktale, the most famous surviving version of which was written by Charles Perrault and first published by Barbin in Paris in 1697 in Histoires ou contes du temps passe. The tale tells the story of a violent nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of one wife to avoid the fate of her predecessors.