A Wild Swan and Other Stories

In A Wild Swan and Other Stories , dark fairy tales are reimagined by award-winning Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Cunningham, and lavishly illustrated by Yuko Shimizu.

A poisoned apple and a monkey's paw that have the power to change fate; a girl whose extraordinarily long hair is responsible for a catastrophe; a man with a human arm and a swan's wing; and a house, deep in the forest, made of gummy bears and gingerbread men, vanilla frosting, and boiled sugar.

In A Wild Swan and Other Stories , the inhabitants and talismans of lands far, far away—the mythical figures of our childhood—find themselves transformed by award-winning author Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation.

Here are the moments they forgot to tell us about or deliberately hid in fairy tales: the years after a spell is broken, the breathtaking moment a miracle is realized, and the fate of a prince only half-cured of a curse. There's also the story of the little man with a special talent who schemes to get a son. And the lazy Jack, who prefers living in his mother's basement to chasing a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans.

Reimagined by one of the most talented storytellers of his generation and beautifully illustrated by Yuko Shimizu—in a style reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley with a touch of Maurice Sendak—bedtime stories have never been so dark, twisted, and realistic.

"Cunningham elegantly and boldly retells ten classic fairy tales, heightening the haunting mystery of the original versions. Yuko Shimizu's striking black-and-white illustrations provide a fitting visual counterpoint to this simultaneously dark and wondrous collection." Publishers Weekly